Craig County is about to get a doctor.

A physician assistant, two nurses, and other providers are on the way, too.

They come to a clinic that has the prospects of being permanent, starting Sept. 17.

"It's the greatest thing," said George Feild, president of Craig County Rural Health Care Corp., which organized 18 months ago to bring in a health center with pharmacy services. The success comes through a partnership with the county government, he said.

"We are standing on the threshold, probably, of one of the most important happenings in Craig County in recent history," Feild said.

Local medical care, which hasn't been available for more than two years, became official news in New Castle on Wednesday when a federal grant for $430,000 annually was announced.

Two other counties in the region, Henry and Floyd, also will get clinics under the federal New Access Point grants issued this week. The grants cover three years each and usually are renewed, according to the agencies that received them.

All three clinics are intended to serve people who otherwise would drive long distances to see a doctor. They will provide primary health care to the uninsured on a sliding-fee scale, and people who have insurance also can be treated at the clinics.

The Craig County medical team will operate a clinic at the county's three schools, all in New Castle -- a feature that could save parents from a lost day of work and many miles of driving to a doctor, Feild said.

The three counties in the Roanoke area to get new clinics are among eight localities statewide that received New Access Point grants announced by the Virginia Community Healthcare Association in Richmond.

Craig County's grant officially was received by Monroe Health Center, which also operates clinics in Union and Peterstown in West Virginia. This grant is designated solely for Craig County.

"We are going to open a satellite clinic to provide primary care to people in Craig County," said Roger Brady, executive director of the health center in Monroe County, W.Va.

It will be staffed by Dr. Travis Hansbarger, a board-certified family practice physician who lives near Paint Bank and already practices at the Monroe center, Brady said.

Radiology services will be provided in New Castle, Brady said.

Other staffing will include a physician assistant who can prescribe most medications.

The assistant, along with a nurse, will operate a wellness clinic at the schools every day from 8 a.m. to noon, Brady said. During afternoons they will work at the town clinic, which also will offer Saturday services at some point.

Normal hours at the town clinic will be 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays, and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Brady said. Eight to 10 people, including two receptionists, will be needed to operate the clinic, he said. Some of them already have been hired and are in a working and training program at the Monroe center, Brady said.

A building has been donated where the clinic will start up on Sept. 17, and another recent grant, of $700,000 from the state government through the federal block grant program, will be used to construct a larger clinic on the same site, Feild said.

A total of five grants figure into the Craig clinic's startup, Feild said, and applications for all of them were successfully written by Patricia Young, who operates Health Care Solutions in Roanoke County.

In addition to the federal and state grants, others were:

• $157,000 from the Virginia Health Care Foundation,

• $65,000 from the Carilion Foundation, and

• $40,000 from the Roanoke Women's Foundation.

Other grants came from Appalachian Power Co., the Craig-Botetourt Electric Cooperative and the Craig County Industrial Development Authority, Feild said. They helped pay for Young's services.

Although fees collected from patients will help operate the clinic, the federal grant is necessary to subsidize treatment of uninsured people who can't pay the full price, Feild and Brady said. "The funds from the federal government will allow us to basically break even" -- which private doctors who practiced in Craig could not do, Feild said.

The Floyd County grant, for $487,500, was issued to Tri-Area Health Clinic of Laurel Fork in Carroll County. It will open a clinic in the town of Floyd within 120 days, at a site to be determined, said Debra Shelor, executive director.

Its mission will focus on people who lack access to health care for financial reasons in Floyd County and the Smith River section of Patrick County, Shelor said.

It will be staffed by a physician and a nurse practitioner, and provide vouchers for medications at the local pharmacy, Shelor said. It expects to see 3,360 patients the first year and 4,500 a year after that.

The Tri-Area clinic already serves corners of Carroll, Floyd and Patrick counties, and a year ago opened a satellite clinic in Ferrum, Shelor said. The clinics are directed by a board of local volunteers, and the new Floyd clinic means the board will gain more representation from Floyd, she said.

The Henry County clinic also will start within 120 days in a building on T.D. Stanley Road in Bassett, said Barbara Jackman, executive director of the Martinsville-Henry County Coalition for Health and Wellness.

Its grant was larger, at $596,921, because the coalition does not yet operate any clinics.

The Henry County clinic will start with a physician and nurse practitioner and expects to grow to about 10 employees, Jackman said. None has been hired yet, she said.

This clinic is needed because many residents of the area are unemployed after many furniture and textile plants closed, Jackman said.