County Executive Chris Collin's 2010
budget plan calls for primary health care services to be cut at the Jesse E.
Nash Health Care Center and Pediatrics, at 608 William Street, and the Dr. Matt
Gajewski Human Services Center, at 1500 Broadway, the county's only two
remaining health clinics.
The
county executive has proposed to transfer these non-mandated clinical services
to the Sheehan Health Network of Buffalo.
The
Jesse Nash Health Care Center offers women's health services, family planning
(including free family planning services to those who qualify), GYN and
prenatal services, dental and mental health services, the latter through
Mid-Erie Counseling and Treatment Services, to low-income women and teens. All
health insurances are accepted, and free family planning services can be
received by anyone meeting income requirements through the Family Planning
Benefit Program.
The Dr.
Matt Gajewski Human Services Center offers primary care, including adult
medicine, pediatrics, podiatry and women's health care services and free family
planning services for those who qualify. All health insurances are accepted,
and free family planning services can be received by anyone meeting income
requirements through the Family Planning Benefit Program.
"This
reduction of health and medical services is targeting those people who are most
in need of such services and whose voices need to be heard loud and clear by
the administration," according to County Legislator Barbara Miller-Williams. "Senior citizens and people of lower economic status have fewer
alternatives for their health care, and this action will further reduce
them."
Legislator
Miller-Williams noted that the patients, community and the Ellicott
Neighborhood Advisory Council are opposed to this change due to many years of
success these centers have had reaching out to thousands of clients living
nearby.
"Senior
citizens, who have worked hard their entire lives, are now being told that they
have to find a new facility to receive some or all of their medical care, and
they will have to find transportation to get them there," Legislator
Miller-Williams added. "People have been utilizing the services at these
clinics for over 10 years, and should not have this important part of their
lives uprooted. The county budget should not be balanced on the backs of the
people seeking health care at these clinics. I will fight to keep these
services available to the people who need and deserve them."
Does it make sense to cut these clinics and redirect health care to Sheehan? With extra money going to culturals from the county, should health care take the bite?
I believe Chris Collins is going to open a new clinic in the Spaulding Lake community and a second in Williamsville. These inner city clinics just aren't making money and we all know health care is about profit. I am not even sure if Chris knows that Buffalo is part of Erie county or that East Side residents are part of his constituency.
He does but he doesnt seem to care. And why would he? The larger suburban vote loves his corporate tough guy act. Thats more than enough voters to negate any backlash in the inner city.
He won't open one in Spaudling Lake because people there work and make money.
Who cares if two places in the East Side shut down. Nothing is open down there. People do not generate much money.
Chris Collins is good for WNY
People on the East side work too, they didn't inherit their money like half of the Spaulding Lake folks.
Chris Collins is good for suburban WNY, so far he has been bad for Buffalo.
"I believe Chris Collins is going to open a new clinic in the Spaulding Lake community and a second in Williamsville"
Keep it coming...love the hyperbole!!!
Health care facilities open, close, and move all the time in the "evil" suburbs. It just doesn't get the same whiny press as when it happens in the city. Is it really THAT awful if they have to go to Sheehan to get the same services?
Much ado about nothing
Yeah, I know, I work in health care in facility planning. Difference is when they close a facility in the burbs people just drive to the new location, in the city many don't own cars limiting their options, especially for the elderly and disabled.
That chip on your shoulder is showing again! I know you don't like the suburbs and absolutely despise places like Spaulding Lake because in your eyes the people who live there are doing so at the expense of the poor who use clinics like this. I know that somewhere in that aging liberal hippy douche mind of yours you have to know that isn't true. You have to know that there are many people living on the East Side who are truly and genuinely not interested in working and that there are many in Spaulding Lake who are putting in 70+ hours a week to run their businesses so others can bring home a paycheck. Somewhere in your mind you have to know that the far left conspiracy theories are as insane as the far right ones. I truly hope you have the emotional intelligence to realize that your irrational banter about how the suburbs is victimizing the helpless city needs to be countered with some rational thought and a balance that keeps the conversation grounded in reality.
Sorry you don't understand sarcasm, BRO would be pretty dull if your "blame the city first" crowd was all we heard. My point was that Collins has shown nothing but contempt for our city and the poorest among us.
As for Spaulding Lake, I feel sorry for those people and their materialistic values. They must not have been paying attention in Sunday school when we were taught that happiness does not come from the acquisition of excessive wealth.
I understand sarcasm, but your comments aren't sarcastic, they are bitter.
I know only one person who lives in Spaulding Lake and a few who live nearby and they all seem pretty damn happy, content, and aren't all that materialistic focused. The people that I know are very community minded, spiritually grounded, and are raising their kids with good values. I think you should probably get to know at least one of them before you start making assumptions about their values. Isn't this what you recommend when someone makes a derogatory comment about the poor? Maybe you should follow your own advice.
O'B:"I truly hope you have the emotional intelligence to realize that your irrational banter about how the suburbs is victimizing the helpless city needs to be countered with some rational thought and a balance that keeps the conversation grounded in reality"
Everybody has their biases including yourself. You talk about temepering opinons for the sake of reality while the rest of that post smacks of your anti City of Buffalo bias, an unfounded belief that BRL wants to see the suburbs "end up like the city", and resentment of the left and other "liberal hippie douches".
Its okay to have these opinions but dont try to claim the moral high ground by coming off as impartial.
"Maybe you should follow your own advice"
-O'Brien 10/25
IluvPB - Please tell me where I have an anti-city bias in my post. Unless you equate the city with poverty, then I could see your point. The fact is that we have wealth in the city, and we also have poverty. Same in the suburbs. If I am anything, I am advocating for the city to learn from the success of the suburbs and not repeat the same mistakes we have made in the past. If this makes me anti-city or pro-suburb then that is only due to your own myopia. We have the opportunity to significantly improve the city, but that won't be done by remaking 1950s Buffalo, that will be done by taking advantage of the city's core competencies and leveraging them to bring in new residents from other cities. Our growth should not be done at the expense of the region, but as an integral part of the whole.
O'B:"Please tell me where I have an anti-city bias in my post."
Right here.
" He won't be happy until the suburbs suffer the same fate as the City, and probably won't settle until all of Erie County becomes the same wasteland of vacant houses and crime ridden streets that make up our East Side and much of our West Side"
Kinda refects a poor attitude on two large portions of the city. The East and West sides have their problems but to many of us they are more than just "wasteland".
O'B"I am anything, I am advocating for the city to learn from the success of the suburbs and not repeat the same mistakes we have made in the past. If this makes me anti-city or pro-suburb then that is only due to your own myopia."
Well we can agree to disagree on this. The situation we have now of some suburbs prospering and the city declining has less to do with suburban success and city mistakes and more to do with monumental policy changes, the city's age, and deindustrialization. Just saying the city needs to mimic the burbs doesnt do anything to correct these problems.
ILPB - Much of the East and West sides of Buffalo are vacant wastelands. That is not anti-city, this is reality. I drive these streets almost daily, I see the issues first hand. I live in a struggling neighborhood in North Buffalo, just on the other side of the tracks (literally) from the rapidly declining University Heights. I have a vested interest in making the city a better place to live for all. I also understand that many of the issues that we are facing today are self inflicted, and we continue to perpetuate the same mistakes year after year, administration after administration. We cannot fix Buffalo by destroying the suburbs, we can only fix Buffalo by honestly and actively taking a critical look at our City and working together to improving our flaws. This is what is needed to bring people back to the City, not policy or directive, we need to make Buffalo, and I mean all of Buffalo, a better place to live.
I am not saying that we mimic the suburbs, I am saying we could learn from their success. The suburbs are growing while the city is declining, primarily because of conditions in the City. We have an apathetic police force, a dysfunctional school system, a corrupt City Hall, a disjointed common council, and a government that is best characterized as non-responsive and disinterested in the needs of the citizens. There are many people in the suburbs who would love to live in the city, but they just don't want to put their families and especially their children at risk by doing so. There are a few pockets of prosperity and great neighborhoods in Buffalo, but they are eclipsed by the growing devastation of the East Side and West Side of Buffalo. We cannot improve this by mimicking the suburbs, but we can improve this by improving the responsiveness of the services we provide to residents.
man last time i drove down bailey i saw a lot of people not work, many abandon homes, and sign of productive life.
I think you need to stop hating people that make money. Maybe he has some good ideas. Maybe closing these places will allow this crappy county to not run up a deficit, if only.
"He won't open one in Spaudling Lake because people there work and make money".
"Who cares if two places in the East Side shut down. Nothing is open down there. People do not generate much money."
Jeesh talk about high and mighty.
Give it a rest. According to you anyone who lives in the Suburb is an idiot and destroying the basic fabric of humananity. Maybe you two should just sleep with each other, since you're mirror images just with a different drum. Pot, kettle