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A Healthy Community: Improving Access to Primary Health Care |
In the 2004 Community Wide Needs Assessment, Healthcare was rated 1st as the most serious of 18 specific issues and 3rd overall. Community Leaders identified healthcare as well as behavioral health care as constituting the major social service/human care need in our community.
Located in a medically underserved area and now accessible to all of Champaign County, the new Frances Nelson Health Center is an example of how change does matter in our community. The United Way, in partnership with CHIC-Frances Nelson Health Center and our friends in the healthcare community, celebrated the opening of the new health center on November 14, 2006. The new building is a 14,500 square foot facility which offers 20 general exam rooms, two eye exam rooms, two mental health and social services rooms, administrative space, and a medical lab. Plans are underway to expand to night and Saturday hours as well as bring on additional medical providers.
Making affordable health care accessible to all people is a primary goal of our Healthy Community Initiative. As part of our mission to help Champaign County citizens be self-sufficient, one of the greatest needs is access to health care. The 2004 Community-Wide Needs Assessment ranked health care as the most serious need, and this new facility will help to meet that need in a tangible way.
Barbara Dunn, executive director for the Community Health Improvement Center, the organization under which Frances Nelson operates, stated, “The Center has needed expanded space for clinical services, offices, and parking for years. Our dream of helping more patients in a larger facility with upgraded equipment is finally a reality.”
With the help of many generous individuals, organizations, foundations, and governmental units, $2.8 million of community resources were mobilized for this project. The result is a community effort that responds to community needs and mobilizes resources. When all is said and done, what matters® are the people served by the new Frances Nelson Health Center and the health and well-being that medical service can provide an individual and a community.
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