Clinic to offer care no matter ability to pay
Southeast Baltimore’s newest community health center — which will provide preventive and primary care to patients, regardless of their ability to pay — will open Monday.
The health center, set to open at Yard 56, a new mixed-use development located adjacent to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, will be the latest operated by the Baltimore Medical System. It will care for around 20,000 new patients in East Baltimore and feature 54 care rooms, the medical system said in a news release Wednesday.
The Baltimore Medical System is the largest federally qualified health center system in the state, meaning it serves patients regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay in an effort to reduce health disparities among lower-income people, racial and ethnic minorities, rural communities and other underserved populations. It cares for more than 60,00 patients annually and operated eight health centers, three pharmacies and eight school-based health sites in Baltimore.
The system’s newest site will be the first to offer dental care, it said in the news release. It received a grant from the Maryland Community Health Resources Commission to do so. In addition to dental care, the site also will offer family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, behavioral health and pharmacy care.
It also will serve as the new headquarters for the Baltimore Medical System’s administrative offices.
The center’s proximity to Johns Hopkins Bayview will strengthen the relationship between the organizations, Baltimore Medical System said in its release. Patients from Bayview’s Children’s Medical Practice and OB/ GYN clinics will start receiving care Monday at the new health center.
Construction at the center was led by Baltimore-based developer David Bramble and MCB Real Estate, the system said. Grants from the Maryland Department of Health, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the France-Merrick Foundation and the Middendorf Foundation are supporting the new center.
“We have been eagerly anticipating the opening of our newest community health center at Yard 56 for several years now, and we are excited to now officially open our doors to patients,” said Shirley Sutton, Baltimore Medical System’s president and CEO, in the news release. “It is vital for every neighborhood to have convenient access to high-quality, affordable health care, and City residents who live in the area surrounding [Johns Hopkins Bayview] now have a modern medical home, near their home, designed to meet alltheirprimaryandspecialty health care needs, including dental care.”