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Roanoke Chowan Community Health Center – Launching Improved
Health Care in Gates County
Look beyond the charm of Gates County’s rural hamlets and
farm fields and you’ll find a community where too many of
the 12,000 or so residents face poverty and chronic health disorders.
Only one physician practices in the county – and no dentist
– so many of the residents travel out of county or out of
state for treatment, often for cancer, diabetes, depression and
substance abuse among other disorders.
“We have a lack of coordinated care and need a bigger medical
home,” Esther Lassiter says. “We’re grateful to
the Obici Healthcare Foundation – it has opened doors for
Gates County.”
Lassiter lives in the county and serves as director of the Gates
Partners for Health who promote improving health and the quality
of life in the county. The group, working through the Roanoke Chowan
Community Health Center, oversaw a planning process partially funded
by the Obici Healthcare Foundation in 2008 and aimed at finding
viable solutions to the county’s health needs.
“Our population is growing with seniors coming here to retire
so we also have geriatric care needs,” Lassiter said, adding
that the county’s lone doctor does a good job but the population
numbers warrant at least 5 medical providers.
The lack of medical providers, she says, leaves patients sitting
in a waiting
room for a full day with many having to return the next day in order
to be seen.
A federally funded Gates County community health center emerged
from the Foundation funded study as the most effective solution
to the county’s health crisis. The Gates Partners for Health
have set their sights on launching a center within the next two
years.
“We want to harness the independent energy in the county into
a collaborative
effort,” says Kim Schwartz, CEO of Roanoke Chowan Community
Health Center, adding that the county needs to move beyond mere
treatment to prevention, early intervention and education.
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