SENATOR DISCUSSES IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS IN VISIT TO SAMUEL U. RODGERS CENTER U.S. Senator Kit Bond visited the Samuel U. Rodgers Community Health Center in Kansas City to highlight the critical role community health centers play in providing primary health care services
BigNews.Biz - Feb 18,2010 - U.S. Senator Kit Bond visited the Samuel U. Rodgers Community Health Center in Kansas City to highlight the critical role community health centers play in providing primary health care services in Missouri and throughout the country. Last year, in the fiscal year 2010 omnibus spending bill, Bond secured $1.5 million in federal funding for the Samuel U. Rodgers Community Health Center to construct a new, 60,000 square foot facility.
“Because of this Center, services most of us take for granted – prenatal care, immunizations, check-ups, dental and mental health care – are available to many people who would otherwise go without,” Bond told friends and employees of the Center. “The strength of a community health center is that no one in need of care – no one – is turned away,”
The facility to be constructed will be 50 percent larger, enhance the quality of care and access to care, and serve an additional 7,200 patients, helping to reduce emergency room usage and community health-care costs. Recently, the funding secured by Bond for improvements like those at Samuel U. Rodgers has become increasingly critical. Each of the 12 Missouri Community Health Centers that applied last year for a share of $500 million in federal community health center grants was denied.
In his remarks, Bond stressed that community health centers provide a vital health care safety net to as many as 46 million people who do not have health insurance. Many without insurance rely on emergency rooms or worse, seek no care at all. The answer in part, Bond says, is increased investments in community health centers. Since the year 2000, Bond and a bipartisan group of Senators have worked to secure an additional $1.2 billion for more than 3,000 new community health-care facilities across the country, including 50 new facilities in Missouri.
Many studies have proven the success of community health centers: these centers help patients make better use of preventative care, lower infant mortality rates, and remove barriers to racial and ethnic health disparities. Also, patients with asthma, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and AIDS are better able to manage their illnesses if they have access to a community health center. Bond pointed out that community health centers also help with spiraling health care costs – reducing health spending by 30 percent for patients. Bond stressed that as Washington debates health care reform, community health centers must be an important part of the solution.
“As you know, the President and Congress are looking at ways to reform the American health-care system,” Bond said. “One thing on which we should all agree is continuing to expand the health-care safety net through community health centers. They work!”
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