Raleigh, NC. For Immediate Release
Contact Leslie Wolcott, NCCHCA
The North Carolina Community Health Center Association (NCCHCA) has received a grant from the Biogen Foundation to support North Carolina’s Community Health Centers as they respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The grant from the Biogen Foundation will be pooled with two other generous grants, and distributed to the state’s 42 Community Health Centers, which operate over 250 sites across North Carolina and serve patients in 84 counties.
This financial support will enable centers to continue to provide excellent and affordable primary care to everyone who walks into their doors, without regard to a person’s ability to pay. It will also help keep the doors open for the state’s most stressed community health centers, especially those which are categorized as “look-alikes,” and function like other Federally Qualified Health Centers but who do not receive federal funding.
“We are grateful to the Biogen Foundation for both thinking of our Community Health Centers during this challenging time and in giving the centers the freedom to spend the funds in the best way they see fit” said Chris Shank, CEO of the North Carolina Community Health Center Association. “Our centers provide care to hundreds of thousands of patients across the state each year, and this support will allow them to continue to do so throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.”
The mission of NCCHCA is to promote and support patient-governed community health care organizations and the populations they serve. Over 40 percent of NCCHCA’s patient population is uninsured and over 90 percent of patients are categorized as low-income. The Association believes that every North Carolina community and resident should have access to a patient-centered, patient-governed, culturally competent health care home that provides high-quality services, regardless of a person’s ability to pay. Access to essential healthcare is more important than ever now that communities are working to treat and contain the COVID-19 pandemic.
