Caring Health Center Seeks State Advocacy for Funding
by Bill Dusty
On Monday Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray received a quick briefing and a site tour of the Caring Health Center’s newest facility-in-the-making located just across the street from the CHC’s clinic on Main Street in downtown Springfield.
The former Hampden Furniture Showcase building was sold at auction to the CHC back in the summer of 2007 for $525,000. Since that time, the health care non-profit has been scrounging for the funding needed to renovate the old furniture store and transform it into an expanded health clinic and a new home for the CHC’s administrative offices. The CHC’s current offices are located just down the road at 1145 Main Street.
The CHC provides medical and dental care as well as WIC (Women, Infants, Children) services to needy residents throughout the city. According to the CHC, the non-profit provides over 40,000 office visits per year with a patient population exceeding 16,500. With the new facility at the former Hampden Furniture building, the CHC will be able to serve an additional 14,000 patients annually. The cost of renovating the 45,000 square-foot space is expected to total $15 million.
CHC President Anne Awad speaks to Lt. Governor Murray (seated right), as Chief Development Officer John Judge (seated left) and Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno (seated center) listen in.
In a brief presentation prior to taking Lt. Governor Murray on a site tour of the former Hampden Furniture building, CHC President Anne S. Awad talked to Murray about the Center’s ongoing struggles to obtain much-needed funding from the federal government – money which she said the Feds all too often earmark primarily for health care providers in and around the Boston region. While acknowledging that such funding decisions are made at the federal level, Awad said the CHC is looking for support from the state in support of funding for facilities in the western part of Massachusetts. “As we move forward, we need state advocacy for funding,” she said. “Sometimes we worry [that] Boston absorbes the resources. But the issues out here are compelling.”
Site of future expanded clinic and administrative offices of the Caring Health Clinic.
There is still much work to be done before the new facility can open its doors.
Also in attendance at the briefing, which was held at the CHC’s current administrative offices, was Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno and the city’s Chief Development Officer, John D. Judge.
Sarno said during the meeting that Lt. Gov. Murray has been a long-time supporter of projects in Springfield. In fact, this was Murray’s second visit to a CHC facility in little over a year, after attending the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Center’s new WIC facility on Boston Road back in 2008.
Murray asked about the refugee population that the CHC was encountering. Awad said the clinic has seen increases in Iraqi, Kurdish and Somali patients, among others, representative of the influx refugees in the Springfield-Worcester region. The CHC has staff certified in nine languages, said Awad. In material provided to the media, those languages were listed as: Spanish, Somali, Kurundi, Russian, Vietnamese, Albanian, Karen/Burmese, Arabic and American Sign Language.
The Caring Health Center, formerly the Springfield Southwest Community Health Center, first opened in 1995. Besides its clinic on Main Street, the CHC currently has a second clinic at 532 Sumner Avenue which also offers dental care. WIC programs are available at the Sumner Avenue facility as well as at 1139 main Street and 860 Boston Road.
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