Healing hubs

Sean McCarthy

There are people who believe that everyone should have access to quality healthcare, regardless of income, insurance, or the ability to pay.

Some of those people live and work in the South Coast.

The greater Fall River and greater New Bedford areas offer Community Health Centers that provide all visitors with thorough and extensive care and resources from top-of-the-line professionals. Children, adults, families, mothers, and seniors are provided with assistance for their health and wellbeing in a variety of areas, depending on the site. No one is turned away at a Community Health Center.

Located at 387 Quarry St. in Fall River, the HealthFirst Family Care Center has served its community for more than 50 years. The state-of-the-art facility provides care in areas such as medical, dental, addiction treatment, behavioral health, sexual and reproductive health, and women’s health. Additional on-site services include physical therapy, a pharmacy, lab services, chronic disease management, and nutritional counseling.

“We don’t turn anyone away, whether it’s a lack of insurance or inability to pay,” says Jenny Mello Reis, Director of Marketing and Development at HealthFirst. “We greet anyone in need with open arms and accept most types of insurance.

“HealthFirst has always been a resource for people struggling through difficult times, whether they’re unemployed, a single parent, or a recent immigrant.”

Community Health Centers provide patients with the same high level of care that they would receive in a hospital or from any medical professional.

“There is nothing to exclude you from receiving the highest quality of care,” Mello Reis says. “HealthFirst prides itself on its high quality of care. Our medical staff has been specially trained in Family Medicine to handle a wide variety of health needs. Our Dental staff has been educated at some of the most prestigious dental schools around the country. We have served three generations of families with adult and pediatric primary care and dental services to the underserved and uninsured residents of the greater Fall River area.

“We’re a one-stop shop for your health needs. We’re at the center of a larger solution to the healthcare crisis that is facing our nation: affordable healthcare.”

HealthFirst prides itself on providing for the diverse community that they serve. They are able to assist with people from the community who are Portuguese, Hispanic, Cambodian, African-American, or Brazilian-Portuguese. Their staff members reflect the various cultures they serve, ensuring easy access for all patients regardless of language, income, or cultural barriers.

They boast of themselves as “The Heart of the Community.”

HealthFirst of Fall River can be reached at (508) 679-8111.

Stronger together

Located at 874 Purchase St. in downtown New Bedford, the New Bedford Health Center has been serving their community for more than 40 years. Their site offers adult medicine, geriatric medicine, pediatric care, women’s health, infectious disease care, dental, urgent care, and services for women, infants, and children.

The Health Center states that they offer “Exceptional Care for All.” They serve people from 41 different communities in the region, with a primary concentration on patients from New Bedford. The Health Center makes it a priority to offer services that go beyond medical care to include social determining factors that affect people’s wellbeing.

“Our mission is twofold,” says Cheryl Bartlett, President and CEO of the New Bedford Health Center. “We want to provide the best patient care that we can to improve their health, but we also want to engage with the community and partner with them.

“The majority of someone’s health comes from the conditions in their life – safe and affordable housing, nutritious food to eat, a job to help support you and your family, transportation, child care, and infrastructure. The two biggest correlates to good health are level of education and level of income, so as a result the poorer population is less healthy. People need education about nutrition and exercise as well as vaccinations to prevent disease or minimize illness. We need a better environment such as air quality, and we need good infrastructure such as better sidewalks and lighting. When you have good public health people aren’t as sick.

“We need to make the healthy choice the easy choice.”

Bartlett explains that the American health industry needs to spend more resources on health prevention rather than after-the-fact treatment.

“Ninety-six percent of the money in this industry is spent on sick care – we’re not improving people’s health,” she says. “Chronic diseases are continually rising in this country and people aren’t getting better. We need to get upstream in our prevention. We spend more money than any other country for health care and we’re 47th in our health status. We spend a lot on technology and not enough on primary basic care. Maybe giving people good food is better than giving them medicine, and maybe someday we won’t need medicine.”

Bartlett says that the Health Center is reaching out to the low-income residents that they serve.

“We have Case Managers and Care Managers who navigate the community to help coordinate the multiple support systems for people’s health,” she says. “We’ve been hiring a growing workforce of community health workers that come from the cultural neighborhoods and communities of the people we serve. Poor people are at risk – it’s difficult to meet your needs when you’re trying to work to take care of your family. And so to get people healthy we have to make sure they’re getting these issues addressed.”

The Health Center has a staff of 300 and half of them speak one or more additional languages, including Portuguese and Spanish. They are able to assist people from the Mayan and Guatemalan communities.

“Culture and language should not be a barrier to getting better health,” Bartlett says. “We’re accessible to all; we can help anyone who walks through our doors. You’re going to receive the quality care that you would receive from any hospital or medical professional. We’re equally qualified from an educational and skill level, but in their compassion and heart capacity they excel beyond most places. People work here because it’s part of their vocation, not their career.”

The New Bedford Health Center provides Adult Medicine for people 18 and older, including routine physicals, primary care, and sick visits, in addition to treating situations such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, allergies, and arthritis. They also do cancer screenings and help with neurological disorders.

For people over 60, the Center offers treatment that includes help with applying for community and home assistance.

Pediatric Care for infants, children, and adolescents is available with a wide variety of services that includes nutritional counseling, physicals for school and camp, adolescent gynecological and reproductive health needs, and consultations for insurance benefits.

There are services available in Women’s Health for females 17 and older, including in-office gynecological care, as well as breast cancer screenings, contraceptive management, and OB/GYN care.

Adolescent services include confidential reproductive health care to teens between 13 and 17, such as routine gynecological care, birth control, STD testing and treatment, pregnancy and HIV testing, and counseling.

The dental health offerings are for families and people of all ages, including preventative care, restorative care, emergency care, extractions, dentures, and whitening.

Infectious disease care includes HIV intervention, testing, and treatment, as well as STD testing and treatment.

The New Bedford Health Center can be reached at (508) 992-6553.

Sean McCarthy has been a freelance journalist for 35 years. He lives in New Bedford.