The City of Buffalo’s newest health care center held a grand opening Monday with a promise of making high-quality care available to a community of people who are medically underserved.
The Community Health Center of Buffalo, which took three years to develop, provides medical services, including family medicine, OB/GYN, pediatrics, dentistry, family planning, HIV testing, radiology, laboratory, pharmacy and diagnostic testing. Psychotherapy and social services are available.
As a federally qualified health center, the new facility provides basic services regardless of a patient’s ability to pay.
The goal is for patients to use the center, instead of a hospital emergency room, as their first choice for medical care.
Despite the cries about all that is wrong with health care, especially programs designated to assist the poor and lower-income households, there is broad-based, bipartisan support across all levels of government for the continued growth and expansion of federally qualified health centers, including the Community Health Center of Buffalo and the Neighborhood Health Center, formerly the Northwest Buffalo Community Health Center.