If a city can be said to have a smile, New Haven’s shone a little more brightly this Monday. State Sen. Martin Looney greeted friends outside of the Hill Health Center (HHC) at 400 Columbus Ave. after he, along with ten or so other state legislators and officials, was honored at a healthful breakfast for their work in the last legislative session of the General Assembly in Hartford. They were cited for leadership in restoring dental health care funding — and much else — that strengthens the safety net for Greater New Haven’s most vulnerable populations.
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Among the honorees were State Sen. Toni Harp, in profile at the center in the photo, speaking to another honoree, Rep. Richard Belden of Shelton, and, in the foreground, Michael P. Starkowski, deputy commissioner of the State Department of Social Services. Each official or legislator received a plaque from HHC, in the shape of a plastic apple, with the words “for strengthening the health and safety net for our state’s most vulnerable people.”
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After assuring his guests that the plaques were valued at under $50, so no ethics laws were being violated, Gary Spinner, HHC’s chief operating officer (to right in the photo, along with Cornell Scott, HHC’s long-standing chief executive officer), struck the serious theme underlying the occasion: “You have been instrumental in the restoring reimbursement rates for dental, medical, and behavioral health services in the SAGA (State Administered General Assistance) program, which provides health insurance to 33,000 single men and women, the poorest of the state’s poor, who qualify for no other insurance. As a result, we’re restoring services to our SAGA clients, about 5,000 of whom we treat at HHC.”
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Spinner cited, in addition, legislative achievements in restoration of funds for vision services as well as non-emergency transportation, which, for many of HHC’s indigent clients, has been a barrier to receiving care. Cornell Scott, who has been with HHC, New Haven’s first community health center, since its founding in 1968, reviewed the history of the organization with an eye to inspiring the legislators to continue to help with the next step into the future.
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“When we got started in the 1960s, it was mandated we had to move into an existing building, this one. We established the community health care model, which is not the same as an HMO. An HMO says, here we are; avail yourselves if you like. With us, outreach is increasingly important and we say, Here we are, and we’ll show you how to access us. Plus we’ve led the way in studying about disparities in health care, for example related to lead-based paint and asthma. We’ve expanded from 35 employees to over 400, but the times are changing, and the ranks of the poor and uninsured are growing dramatically. During the last fiscal year, we logged 160,000 patient visits, we’re outgrowing our facilities as we’ve added important ophthalmologic and increasingly needed mental health and substance abuse programs.”
The expansion of service and facilities Scott described will result in the ability to provide another 30,000 patients with annual visits, an increase of 20 percent, if funding can be secured.
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Robert Windom, HHC’s director of pediatric care, is pleased at the prospect of expansion. “Between this site and those on Dixwell and in Ansonia and the six school-based clinics HHC operates, that’s about 40,000 pediatric patient visits a year. Many are the children of people who themselves were patients of ours 20 years ago. This building,” he said, referring to the main center on Columbus, “was a former toy factory. The spaces are crowded. Our pediatric patients share a waiting room with the adult patients. That’s not ideal, ” he said with genial irony. “An expansion will make a huge difference.”
HHC, which is run as a private nonprofit, has raised approximately half of the funds required for expansion of clinical services, upgrading infrastructure and the major capital improvement that will provide Windom with that waiting room, and much more. The balance, approximately $6.2 million, is in the hands of the state’s bonding commission, which allocated the funds in 2005, but they have not yet been released.
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Will they be? It was a good sign, according to Spinner, that so many officials were at the celebratory breakfast, including Robert L. Genuario, secretary of the State Office of Policy and Management, which oversees the bonding commission agenda.
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“There are needs all over the state,” Genuario said later, circumspect but encouraging, as his role requires. “The bonding commission just released at the meeting on Friday $159 million for transportation and $300 million for school construction, including $10 million for the Gateway Community College project here in New Haven. There’s $25 or $30 million for community health centers statewide,” he said, “and we’re keenly aware of the increasing importance of the services provided.”
“Affordable health care is just about the state’s most critical issue,” Looney offered, “and community health centers are lifesavers for people with nowhere else to go,” he mentioned to Genuario in passing. A celebratory breakfast can feature a lot more than eggs, hash browns, fruit, and coffee. Let’s hope HHC’s worthy message gets through.
