One-million-dollar renovations of the University Health Services (UHS) kicked off last month with construction of a new surgical clinic for the facility.

The new clinic should be completed within 18 weeks, and renovations to the entire health care center will be completed over the next five years. University officials said yesterday that the rehabilitation project is the first in UHS's 24-year history in Holyoke Center.

The surgical clinic, which will be located in a former laboratory on the first floor of the Health Services headquarters, will cost $250,000.

UHS's deputy director, Dr. Sholem Postel, said that the new clinic should ease the flow of patients in and out of the operating room by allowing surgeons to work in one room while technicians attend to other patients in a second area.

Citing a recent survey in which patients described the waiting areas as cold, impersonal and lacking privacy, Postel said that future renovations will focus on "improving the ambience of the rest of the walk-in clinic."

"It will be more pleasant to get care in the Health Services," he said, "It will be better care."

Although current funding for the project comes from a variety of university- and government-supported loans, in the long run, Postel said, patients will pay for it.