Northwood is about to get something it has never had: a doctor’s office of its own. Wood County’s first school-based health center is due to open in early 2027 on the Northwood schools campus on Lemoyne Road — and it will treat neighbors, not just students, in a city that today has no primary care provider at all, according to BG Independent News reporting summarized by Lake Erie Inquiry on November 7.
The clinic is a partnership between the Wood County Community Health Center and Northwood Local Schools. It will open with primary care in two exam rooms plus lab space, health center CEO Lindsey Ruivivar described the plans to BG Independent News, with care available to people without insurance and fees based on income. Dental and mental health services are future goals, not part of the opening, Ruivivar described to BG Independent News.
The need is stated plainly in the project’s federal paperwork. “There are currently no primary care providers located in the City of Northwood,” Rep. Marcy Kaptur wrote in her March 27, 2026 community-project funding request for the center. Kaptur’s request describes the project as the first school-based health center in Wood County, giving students and families convenient, local access to primary care alongside food resources and other educational supports on the school campus, in an area with high poverty, Medicaid enrollment and free-and-reduced lunch rates…