FULTON — Northern Oswego County Health Services, Inc. (NOCHSI) has expanded its dental services by opening a new dental practice in Fulton.

NOCHSI in June opened its newly constructed and equipped dental practice adjacent to its Fulton Health Center at 510 S. 4th St., Suite 600 in Fulton — in the former A.L. Lee Memorial Hospital building now owned by Oswego Health. 

The dental practice provides a range of primary and preventive dental services, NOCHSI said in a news release. The practice is staffed Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., by dentists Melissa Noel and Anna Gofman, both of whom are continuing to schedule patient hours at NOCHSI’s Pulaski Health Center. They are joined in Fulton by recently hired dental hygienist Patricia Bendura. 

NOCHSI says it continues to provide a full range of primary and preventive dental services at its Pulaski Health Center at 61 Delano St. in Pulaski. Services there are currently being provided by dentist Kwi Lee and dental hygienists Brittany Gehrke, Jessica J. Overton, Marissa Taber, and Dorese Vecchio. In addition, NOCHSI has hired dentist Sarah Dunn to serve patients in Pulaski. Dunn brings more than 10 years of dentistry practice experience. 

NOCHSI says the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration provided oral health services expansion grant money that made the Fulton dental program expansion possible.

NOCHSI operates health centers in Fulton, Mexico, Oswego, Parish, Phoenix, and Pulaski. It also operates six school-based health centers located in the APW, Mexico, Pulaski, and Sandy Creek school districts. 

CARTHAGE — Carthage Area Hospital on Oct. 23 opened a new surgical clinic at its main hospital campus at 1001 West St. in Carthage.

The clinic provides patients with expanded access to care and more than doubles the number of general surgeons on staff, the hospital said in a news release.

The hospital’s previous surgical clinic at 3 Bridge St. in the Carthage Professional Building has relocated from clinical space it had occupied since early 2008. The change brings the general surgery team to the hospital, under the same roof as its ambulatory surgical unit, laboratory, and medical imaging facilities.

The New York State Department of Health approved a certificate of need for the new surgical clinic in early October after a department official inspected the recently renovated clinical space in the hospital, the release stated.

Carthage Area Hospital has brought on two new general surgeons, who in recent weeks began seeing patients at the Bridge Street location. They join the general surgery team through a partnership Carthage Area Hospital has forged with Bozeman, Montana–based Synergy Surgicalists. The additional staff allows the hospital to provide patients with 24-hour access to general surgery for emergency procedures. It is also expected to lead to shorter wait times for patients who are seeking care for routine outpatient surgeries.

“Months in development, this investment puts our patients first while improving their access to quality surgical care in the local area,” Rich Duvall, Carthage Area Hospital CEO said in the release. “Patients can expect a greater availability of highly qualified surgeons and improved service without the burden of unnecessary travel to a facility out of the region.”

Joining the Carthage Surgical Clinic are board-certified general surgeons Dr. Virginia McDougall and Dr. Jared Tomlinson. Dr. Marcia Chung, a general surgeon who has operated at Carthage Area Hospital since January 2014, remains on staff and will join Synergy’s Carthage–based team in November.

Some common surgeries the new team will perform include: cutaneous malignancies, lesions and infections; soft tissue mass, infections and wounds; breast biopsy (mass, infection) and mastectomy; thyroid and parathyroid mass and surgical management; gallbladder diseases; small and large intestinal malignancies; laparoscopic procedures; and varicose veins.

New York farms produced 138.4 million eggs in September, virtually unchanged from 138.5 million eggs in the year-ago period, the USDA recently reported.

The total number of layers in the Empire State decreased by almost 3 percent in September to 5.43 million from 5.59 million a year prior. 

New York egg production per 100 layers totaled 2,548 eggs in September, up nearly 3 percent from 2,476 eggs in September 2016.

In neighboring Pennsylvania, egg production fell less than 1 percent to 662 million eggs in September, from 667 million eggs a year earlier, the USDA reported. 

Nationally, U.S. farms produced nearly 8.5 billion eggs in September, down 0.2 percent from a year prior, the USDA said.