Open Door Family Medical Center has received an emergency grant of $187,500 from the medical aid organization Direct Relief, in partnership with the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC).
Open Door will use the grant to support testing/triage, education and community access to the Covid-19 pandemic for its underserved population.
“Like many community health centers from across the country, our financial situation was seriously impacted by the pandemic, with virtually all of our efforts spent caring for the unanticipated volume of Covid-19 patients throughout the Lower Hudson Valley,” said Lindsay Farrell, President and CEO of Open Door. “The grant will help us close the financial gap.”
Open Door was among 518 Federally Qualified Health Centers to receive funding through Direct Relief’s $25 million Cov-19 Fund for community health. Direct Relief recognizes the pandemic’s profound effects on the finances, services, staff, and patients of community health centers.
Major funding to Direct Relief was contributed by companies such as 3M and concerned persons such as entertainment mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who organized an online Dance-a-Thon to raise funds for this purpose.
“Access to primary care is what keeps people healthy and out of the hospital. The frontline work of Open Door and other nonprofit community health centers is more critical than ever with the onset of Covid-19,” said Thomas Tighe, Direct Relief President and CEO. “Direct Relief is doing everything possible to bolster the work and support the staff at the safety-net health facilities on which so many patients and their families rely on.”
An estimated 30 million of America’s most vulnerable residents – one in 12 – rely on Federally Qualified Health Centers (including one in nine children). That number is expected to rise as more people lose employer-sponsored insurance.
Open Door Family Medical Center’s mission has remained consistent since 1972: to provide high-quality health care that’s affordable, accessible and efficient.
Today, the federally qualified health center cares for nearly 1,000 adults and children every day in Westchester, Putnam and Ulster counties – with more than 300,000 patient visits and over 400 babies delivered annually – regardless of one’s ability to pay. In addition to medical, dental, pediatric, women’s, podiatry and behavioral health care offered in its Ossining, Port Chester, Sleepy Hollow, Mount Kisco, Brewster, Mamaroneck sites; eight School-Based Health Centers in the Ossining and Port Chester school districts; a mobile dental; and dental practice in Saugerties, Open Door promotes wellness, good nutrition, stress reduction and physical activity to help families stay healthy.
