West Side Community Health Services

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West Side Community Health Services (WSCHS) is a community health care organization based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, that serves the Twin Cities metropolitan area. It is Minnesota's largest community clinic organization, providing health care at 18 locations to some 35,000 patients. [1] [2]

Health care Prevention of disease and promotion of wellbeing

Health care or healthcare is the maintenance or improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health professionals in allied health fields. Physicians and physician associates are a part of these health professionals. Dentistry, midwifery, nursing, medicine, optometry, audiology, pharmacy, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy and other health professions are all part of health care. It includes work done in providing primary care, secondary care, and tertiary care, as well as in public health.

Saint Paul, Minnesota Capital of Minnesota

Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of 2017, the city's estimated population was 309,180. Saint Paul is the county seat of Ramsey County, the smallest and most densely populated county in Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city. Known as the "Twin Cities", the two form the core of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, with about 3.6 million residents.

Minnesota State of the United States of America

Minnesota is a state in the Upper Midwest, Great Lakes, and northern regions of the United States. Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U.S. state on May 11, 1858, created from the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory. The state has a large number of lakes, and is known by the slogan the "Land of 10,000 Lakes". Its official motto is L'Étoile du Nord.

Contents

WSCHS was founded in 1969 as People's Health Center, a group of volunteers who worked in a church basement to provide free health care services for Spanish-speaking residents of St. Paul's West Side. [1] [3] [4] At first, they could work with only six or seven patients each day. [5]

Today it focuses on providing care to low-income and immigrant groups. The United States Department of Health and Human Services provides significant financial support to the organization. [6] The clinics also receive substantial funding from the state of Minnesota through the Medicaid program, although they have sometimes had trouble collecting the money from the state. [7] Many of the patients served by the organization have no insurance at all, which poses a serious financial challenge. [8]

United States Department of Health and Human Services department of the US federal government

The United States Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), also known as the Health Department, is a cabinet-level department of the U.S. federal government with the goal of protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is "Improving the health, safety, and well-being of America". Before the separate federal Department of Education was created in 1979, it was called the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW).

Medicaid United States social health care program for families and individuals with limited resources

Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with medical costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and personal care services. The Health Insurance Association of America describes Medicaid as "a government insurance program for persons of all ages whose income and resources are insufficient to pay for health care." Medicaid is the largest source of funding for medical and health-related services for people with low income in the United States, providing free health insurance to 74 million low-income and disabled people as of 2017. It is a means-tested program that is jointly funded by the state and federal governments and managed by the states, with each state currently having broad leeway to determine who is eligible for its implementation of the program. States are not required to participate in the program, although all have since 1982. Medicaid recipients must be U.S. citizens or qualified non-citizens, and may include low-income adults, their children, and people with certain disabilities. Poverty alone does not necessarily qualify someone for Medicaid.

In 2004, WSCHS began an affiliation with the Pfizer Sharing the Care program, which gives low-income patients access to prescription medications that they could not otherwise afford to buy. [2]

Pfizer American multinational pharmaceutical corporation

Pfizer Inc. is an American multinational pharmaceutical corporation headquartered in New York City, with its research headquarters in Groton, Connecticut. It is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and its shares have been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since 2004. Pfizer ranked No. 57 on the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.

See also

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A Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) is a reimbursement designation from the Bureau of Primary Health Care and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. This designation is significant for several health programs funded under the Health Center Consolidation Act.

Free clinic health care facility offering services to economically disadvantaged individuals for free or at a nominal cost

A free clinic is a health care facility in the United States offering services to economically disadvantaged individuals for free or at a nominal cost. The need for such a clinic arises in societies where there is no universal healthcare, and therefore a social safety net has arisen in its place. Core staff members may hold full-time paid positions, however, most of the staff a patient will encounter are volunteers drawn from the local medical community. Care is provided free of cost to persons who have limited incomes, no health insurance and do not qualify for Medicaid or Medicare. To offset costs, some clinics charge a nominal fee to those whose income is deemed sufficient to pay a fee. Many free clinics offer services to underinsured individuals; meaning those who have only limited medical coverage, or who have insurance, but their policies include high medical deductibles that they are unable to afford. Clinics often use the term "underinsured" to describe the working poor.

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Mille Lacs Indian Reservation is the popular name for the land-base for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in Central Minnesota, about 100 miles (160 km) north of Minneapolis-St. Paul. The contemporary Mille Lacs Band reservation has significant land holdings in Mille Lacs, Pine, Aitkin and Crow Wing counties, as well as other land holdings in Kanabec, Morrison, and Otter Tail Counties. Mille Lacs Indian Reservation is also the name of a formal Indian reservation established in 1855. It is one of the two formal reservations on which the contemporary Mille Lacs Band retains land holdings. The contemporary Mille Lacs band includes several aboriginal Ojibwe bands and villages, whose members reside in communities throughout central Minnesota.

An abortion fund is a non-profit organization that provides financing for abortions to indigent women who cannot afford the fees. Abortion funds are widespread in countries like the United States of America where there is no national healthcare plan and where health insurance policies may not cover abortions.

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References

  1. 1 2 Nekessa Opoti (November 3, 2009), "St. Paul's West Side Community Health Service serves many immigrant communities", Twin Cities Daily Planet
  2. 1 2 "West Side Community Health Services plans to expand medicine assistance", Insight News, August 23, 2007
  3. ↑ West Side Community Health Services - Official Website
  4. ↑ Representative Betty McCollum (September 20, 2007), "Honoring West Side Community Health Services", Congressional Record, Sunlight Foundation, 153 (140), p. E1935, retrieved April 12, 2012
  5. ↑ "Our History: Building on Tradition". Westside Community Health Services.
  6. ↑ Westside Community Health Services 2006 Financial Report
  7. ↑ "State owes clinics millions of dollars", Minnesota Public Radio, February 7, 2005
  8. ↑ "Insurance crisis imperils busy community clinic", St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 5, 2006
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