Meriden / Connecticut / United States
Community Health Center is one of the oldest and largest community "federally qualified health center" in the United States, providing health care to more than 70,000 patients annually through its offices in Connecticut. Medicine, dentistry, and mental health are the core clinical services, supported by a range of social and support services including a battered womens shelter. In 1972, a group of young community organizers and activists started CHC with more energy than dollars. Its first site was a second floor apartment near Wesleyan University, using volunteer dentists and physicians, and organized upon a rallying cry of Health care as a Right, not a Privilege During its 34 years, the organization has created primary care facilities in nine Connecticuts towns and cities throughout central, southeastern and southwester Connecticut: Middletown (1972), Old Saybrook (1980), Meriden (1991), New London (1992), Groton (1995), New Britain (1996), Clinton (2000), and Norwalk and Stamford (2005). Some of these facilities were the first organizations to deliver health care targeted to uninsured, low income, minority, and working poor families. Others replaced struggling organizations, particularly hospital-run clinics, that could no longer survive the increasing business and clinical challenges of providing excellent primary care to this population group.
