President's Remarks Vol. 4 No. 1

Welcome to the 4th edition of our semi-annual newsletter! Please join me in welcoming back Jane Dunning who re-joins your Board of Directors after a hiatus of several years and takes a seat as a Hyde Park consumer concerned about accessible and quality health care for her neighbors. Welcome back Jane!

About 27 years ago another group of neighbors surveyed the landscape here in southwest Boston and became concerned that no health center served them. They joined together and acted to form what today we know as The Greater Roslindale Medical and Dental Center. They joined a national movement that began in the mid 1960s when the very first urban community health center was founded right here in Boston at Columbia Point. Now there are some 46 community health centers throughout Massachusetts where more than 600,000 patients receive their primary health care.

Over the years most of these sites have withstood a very chilling environment. Even today we read about a sister affiliate facing bankruptcy and closing its doors.

Here in our southwest corner of Boston, we have been exceedingly fortunate to be licensed by a financially healthy institution - The Boston Medical Center. We have also enjoyed the careful planning and control of a health center administration that lives within its means by carefully managing its expenses to levels conservatively below its revenue. In a recent newspaper interview, Executive Director Barbara Lottero spoke about the irony that for years the health center received only small amounts of programmatic state grant funding so cutbacks were not of the proportion as in other health centers where reliance on state grants made the situation much more fragile. On the other hand, the state has systematically limited access to and services within its MassHealth program. And in that we are deeply concerned because that is what our neighbors feel. And when neighbors stop coming in for health care, entire families suffer. And, When families suffer, neighborhoods are at risk.

I urge you all to rekindle the spirit of those neighbors of ours who, 27 years ago, surveyed the landscape and acted together for positive change. Today I ask you to make your voice heard inside the State House. Make sure that once our leaders have weathered this economic storm, that the sacrifices and cutbacks being made today do not become permanent and irreversible.