Family Health Care gets $1 million grant

Van Wert independent/submitted information

A local health care agency received a big financial boost from the federal government this week.

U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) announced Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released additional funds and awarded $1,066,667 to Family Health Care of Northwest Ohio in Van Wert.

In June, Brown urged HHS Secretary Sylvia Matthews Burwell to release outstanding grant funding to help Ohio health centers meet the demand for services.

“Community health centers in Ohio and across the U.S. are critical access points for underserved patients,” said Brown. “This funding will help Family Health Care of Northwest Ohio continue to provide local residents with quality and affordable primary and preventive health care services.”

“We are extremely excited to have been awarded this grant,” said Family Health Care Director Jennifer Smith. “Our staff and Board of Directors have been working long and hard to achieve this goal.”

Smith said the grant would help fully fund the agency and provide a needed service for local low-income families.

“We have recognized the need to provide dental services to low-income individuals in our community; this grant was written with an emphasis on funding for a dental clinic,” Smith noted. “Receiving these grant dollars will make it possible for Family Health Care to provide these much-needed services.”

Smith said the grant would also allow Family Health Care to hire additional staff and, eventually, offer additional services to better meet the needs of the patients it serves.

“We are excited and looking forward to the future of FHC,” she said.

Board President Shirley Jarvis was also pleased to receive the $1 million grant.

“We, as a board, are thrilled to become a fully-funded health center,” Jarvis said. “It is a goal we have had and worked toward for many years.

“We are proud of the health center’s growth and success (and) we look forward, and are excited, to provide more and varied health care opportunities to the Van Wert community,” she added.

In a letter to Secretary Burwell, Brown and his Senate colleagues had asked HHS to promptly award remaining fiscal year 2015 funding by granting approval of pending grant applications. Funding for the Community Health Center Fund was first made available through the health law, which boosted funding for community health centers’ primary and preventive care services.