Lowell Community Health Center (LCHC) in Massachusetts on Friday treated the community of Greater Lowell to a cocktail-evening-tour of the center’s new facilities.
The health center has added in its portfolio, two major services helpful to the community; dental and eye-care services.
Speaking at the event, the board chairperson Mr. Bruce Robinson told community members that the health center has added over 15,000 new patients in just five years. He added that the center now treats just about half of the city of Lowell’s population.
The health center has served the community for many years, regardless of their ability to pay.
“The idea is that truly, if you come here as a patient, you can get just about anything that you need, all under [one roof]. You can have lab-work, see your primary care physician, have dental service, get your eyeglasses in these two buildings …..and the equipment here is state-of-the-art, ” added Mr. Robinson.
The center’s health promotion and education manager; Mercy Anampiu, who is also a Kenyan community leader in Lowell said they are extremely excited and it is a great achievement to have dental and vision services at the health center.
“The time that I’ve worked here we’ve listened to the community and done so much already. Just like we do not turn anybody away for general healthcare, having dental and vision services here means that we cannot turn anybody away for dental or eye-care as well, and it’s very exciting” said Mercy Anampiu.
With the new additions at the health center, people who do not have adequate insurance or MassHealth standard can now receive eye and dental care at the Lowell Community Health Center.
“The need for these services is great. Many health services that we have done and that our community partners have done demonstrate the need for dental and vision services in our community” said the Chief of Community Health and Policy- Sheila Och.
The health center has sixteen dental exam rooms and seven vision exam rooms, five of which are fully automated.
The health center’s chief operating officer-Henry Och took the group on a tour around dental and eye-care centers.
“This vision machine is tailored by the doctor to the patient’s needs and is able to automatically calculate the glasses lens prescription using the patient’s available digital medical records,” Henry said referring to one of the newly acquired state-of-the-art machines.
LCHC is the first community health center in Massachusetts to acquire the type of cutting-edge automation now available at the facility.
Sharing one of her patient’s experience, Esther Nganga, who works at the health center’s HIV department and walk-in center, talked highly of the services offered at the facility.
The health center is able to serve patients speaking over 30 different languages.
“I think you can imagine how strange it feels when you come to a place where somebody doesn’t speak your language; but also important is how comfortable they feel when they talk to us and somebody takes care of them,” Said Esther Nganga.
The Lowell Community Health Center is fundraising towards a campaign goal of $3 million towards bridging dental, vision and added primary care services. This goal was just $127,000 from being achieved at the time of this reporting. Community members can find donation details by visiting this link http://www.lchealth.org/donate Or calling 978 746 7891.
