A Message From The President & CEO
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Pezé sou drapo anwo paj la pou Kreyol
The future strength of your healthcare hangs in the balance as Congress debates funding for Community Health Centers, the National Health Service Corps, and Teaching Health Centers across the nation. Unless Congress takes action, more than 1,400 health centers throughout the U.S., including Community Health of South Florida, Inc. (CHI), will not have access to critical funding to provide care to more than 31 million patients. Nearly 9 million of those are children and all of those patients deserve access to high-quality, compassionate healthcare, regardless of income or insurance status.
CHI’s Brodes H. Hartley, Jr. Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education (THCGME) program will celebrate its 10-year anniversary of training doctors in family medicine and psychiatry and it depends on financial support to continue developing the next generation of doctors. A majority of the graduates across the nation stay in community health and some of the graduates from CHI’s program have remained in Miami-Dade County. With a doctor shortage projected, legislators cannot afford to skip workforce funding like this.
CHI is not mine—it’s all of ours. It’s a resource that keeps my family healthy and safe and does the same for communities throughout Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. It is all of our responsibilities to let congressional leaders know that they must fund community health and teaching health centers. The welfare of our communities depends on it. Please reach out to your Congressional leader and tell them to fund these key programs.
On another note, many of us have pushed COVID-19 into the back of our minds, eager to forget it. But now is not the time to forget. As you will read in this edition of the newsletter, COVID-19 rates are again increasing and we need to be vigilant. Make sure you and your loved ones are vaccinated, which you can do at any CHI health center.
It’s also flu season, so if you don’t have your flu vaccine, we suggest you get it here at CHI. We want you to be healthy as we head into the holiday season and this is one of many ways that can help you enjoy your time with your families.
Let’s advocate for a healthy family, a healthy home and a healthy nation together.
Yours Truly,
Blake Hall