Kennedy health center expansion aims to meet needs of Worcester's underserved populations
WORCESTER — Every speaker during Monday's press conference said how critical it is to deliver high-quality health care to the city’s low-income and underserved populations.
City Manager Eric D. Batista and U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern were some of the dignitaries who delivered that message at the event and ribbon cutting to mark a new satellite location at 605 Lincoln St. for the Edward M. Kennedy Community Health Center.
"This is significant for the community here,” said Batista. “Now, more people here will have access to treatment.”
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The $5 million expansion is located in a separate building formerly occupied by the Veterans Administration. Of the total price tag, $3 million arrived from Congress; private sources including the George F. and Sybil H. Fuller Foundation and the George I. Alden Trust; and the Kennedy Health Center's operating funds.
With the Lincoln Street addition, the center now has a combined total of 11 sites in Central Massachusetts and MetroWest.
Happy and proud
“I’m very happy, very proud,” said Ha Phan, moments after the ceremonial ribbon cutting.
Phan, the health center’s dental lab supervisor, has worked at Kennedy Health for the past 23 years. That represents nearly half of the organization’s half-century life since it was founded in the early 1970s by seven mothers living in the Great Brook Valley public housing development who wanted families to have access to quality health care.
Today, the health center serves more than 30,000 patients that speak nearly 90 languages.
“Hopefully, the seven mothers are looking down (from heaven) and proud of the work to continue access to care,” said Stephen J. Kerrigan, the center’s current president and chief executive officer.
Kerrigan explained the center’s current Tacoma Street location has no room for expansion, so when 605 Lincoln St. came on the market, the health center jumped at the chance to buy it.
Happening in phases
Rehabilitation of the 30,000-square-foot building will roughly double Kennedy Health's capacity in Worcester and is occurring in phases. The first is expected to wrap up in two weeks, where patients will receive optometry and behavioral health services.
The second phase will provide space for dental and urgent care services, and the third will house an expanded pharmacy that replaces the center’s existing one on Tacoma Street.
All rehabilitation work is expected to be finished in early May, and when all said and done, there will be 16 dental exam rooms, 19 consultation rooms for behavioral health and one dental lab that is double the size of the center’s existing one.
“This is going to be an incredible place,” said McGovern. “It will provide first-class health care.”
Increased access to care
Dr. Matilde Castiel, Worcester's commissioner of health and human services, attended Monday’s event.
She wasn’t one of the speakers, but like those who gave prepared remarks, Castiel said the Kennedy health center’s expansion will increase access to health care and address inequities in care.
Castiel also noted that collecting more community health care data, including from local hospitals, is needed.
It can be accomplished, she noted, as the city’s health organizations are again banding together — like they did during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — to share information that can help solve local health challenges including diabetes that plagues the city’s populations of color.
“With the data, we can work to solve some of these problems,” said Castiel.
Contact Henry Schwan at henry.schwan@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @henrytelegram
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Kennedy Health Center expansion aims to meet needs of Worcester underserved populations
