CMR hoping for $1M from state for new health center

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

CMR hoping for $1M from state for new health center

by Warren Parish | Staff Writer

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Community Ministries of Rockville is seeking $1 million in state funding to help establish a new health center in Rockville.

‘‘This is really going to take a bite into the number of people who are not getting health care right now,” Mark J. Poletunow, executive director of Community Ministries, said. ‘‘That’s going to have implications for the present and future regarding the health of the community. If people are going to be getting health care, they’re preventing disease.”

Named in honor of Poletunow’s predecessor, the Mansfield Kaseman Health Center is expected to serve 4,000 patients in its first year of operation.

CMR has received about $1 million in public and private commitments toward the project.

Senate and House bond bills have been filed, sponsored respectively by Sen. Jennie M. Forehand (D-Dist. 17) of Rockville and Del. James W. Gilchrist (D-Dist. 17) of Rockville, asking the state to issue a matching grant of $1 million.

Projects that will be funded by the state with be announced in the coming weeks.

During the next several years, the health center could make a larger dent in the local healthcare gap that includes an estimated 8,500 uninsured and underserved people in the greater Rockville community, CMR officials have reported. Montgomery County has an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 uninsured and underserved residents, officials have said.

Community Ministries of Rockville, in partnership for several years with Mobile Medical Care, currently serves about 800 patients a year. But that program offers just 12 hours per week at two Rockville locations: the Lincoln Park Community Center and Crusader Lutheran Church.

The new clinic would improve upon the mobile model by establishing a permanent and more visible presence in the community, Poletunow said.

Adventist Health Care, with hospitals in Rockville and Takoma Park, Suburban Hospital in Bethesda and Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring have endorsed the project, CMR reported.

Community Ministries has its eye on two sites in the city, but Poletunow declined to name the locations, saying negotiations are in the works.

The target date for opening the new clinic is July 2009.