Tuesday, March 23, 2021
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Serving Elkhart County and parts of Noble, LaGrange & Marshall Counties Know Your Neighbor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2➤ Speak Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Good Neighbors . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Goshen (574) 534-2591
Vol. 48 No. 50
134 S. Main, Goshen, Indiana 46526
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/22.,1* )25 $ +($/7+< 60,/( ³ Christian Lugo, left, dental assistant, and Dr. Kamani Meriwether, DDS, right, check out Don Yost÷s teeth at Maple City Health Care÷s new dental clinic. Yost is Maple City÷s story teller. The dental clinic is only accepting current Maple City Health Care patients at the moment. Photo by Lauren Zeugner. 5220 35(3 ³ Luz Barreintos, lead medical assistant at Maple City Health Care, prepares an exam room for a patient who will be having a pap smear as part of her exam. Barreintos works in Maple City Health Care÷s Vista location, which is located on North Main Street in the old Abshire Mansion in Goshen. Photo by Lauren Zeugner.
growing organically to benefit the community %\ /$85(1 =(8*1(5 $VVRFLDWH (GLWRU Maple City Health Care Center opened 32 years ago in the old north side fire station in Goshen. When the health center opened in February 1989, it had just two staff members and mainly served residents on the north side of Goshen. Today Maple City Health Care Center has 130 staff members and serves patients from within the city limits of Goshen. In a typical year Maple City Health Care serves about 7,000 patients. Since those modest beginnings, Maple City Health Care Center has grown, the original clinic on Middlebury Street still sees patients, while the clinic also opened Vista, a new health clinic located in the old Abshire Mansion on North Main Street several years ago and a new dental clinic, open only to Maple City Health Care patients, this past January. Along with dental care, other services Maple City Health Care offers its patients include behavior health, an addiction recovery program, tattoo removal program and
an active OB/GYN practice. According to Dr. James Nelson Gingerich, guardian of vision, 42% of Maple City Health Care’s patients are under 18, so there is also an active pediatric practice providing vaccines and other child based care. “There’s a wide range of services,” Gingerich said. Maple City Health Care offers affordable health care to its patients, typically on a sliding scale. Collaboration is how Maple City Health Care has grown and expanded its services. For the tattoo removal program, Cory Martin, the Elkhart County Jail Chaplain, started a tattoo removal program in the jail. However, since it can take six or more sessions to remove a tattoo, some inmates leave the jail before their sessions are done. With assistance from the Elkhart County Community Foundation and Lippert, who purchased a laser machine to remove tattoos, Maple City Health Care took on the program. The health care center even hired two former jail inmates to run the program. “This is about giving people coming out of jail a chance,” Gingerich said.
The new dental program was started in a collaboration with a dental office in the area to provide care for patients. “We already had the structures in place for primary care,” Gingerich explained. What makes Maple City Health Care work is the belief of the staff and board relationships make the difference. The staff also pays close attention to which patients have their diabetes under control, which have their hypertension under control. At the same time, the health care’s staff take advantage of every opportunity that arrives. For example, suggesting to a mom who brought her child in for immunizations, that she have her lipid panel done rather than making another appointment to come in. “We have faced a lot of change and obviously growth … This was not a strategic plan. It was organic,” Gingerich said. Relationships and community are a key to Maple City Health Care’s growth. A lot of its entrance level staff comes from its patient base. “That’s a really dif-
ferent model,” Gingerich said. “So we end up getting passionate people who care about this community.” Another key point is making sure staff is paid a living wage. Everyone on staff receives health insurance, dental and vision insurance, child care, retirement benefits, parental leave and there is even a $5,000 scholarship for children of staff who want to attend college. “We really work at a culture of having enough for everyone,” Gingerich said, explaining the center’s focus on the community has been the primary goal. As an example, during the economic downturn in 2008, a lot of the health center’s undocumented patients were being laid off and then not coming in for care because they couldn’t afford it. A staffer suggested patients volunteer at other non-profits in order to receive a discount on their care. Local organizations such as LaCasa, Chamberlain School, Habitat for Humanity and The Window agreed to use Maple City’s volunteers.
While 60 to 70% of Maple City’s patients prefer speaking Spanish, patients also come from Appalachia, Russia, the Ukraine, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Cambodia as well as Mexico, Central and South America. The staff is bilingual for Spanish and English with some speaking Arabic. For the other languages a tele-service is used. COVID hit the community the center serves hard, with about 20 patients dying from the virus. In response, Maple City Health Care has been targeting getting the vaccine to those it’s hardest to get to, such as those without internet access, who need ID or a translator. “Part of what we do, instead of using the state enrollment system is we set up our own, “ Gingerich explained. He did stress the health center’s vaccine clinic is open to anyone in the community. As for the future of Maple City Health Care “We’ll see what the community needs and wants,” Gingerich said. “I can imagine us … with more outreach in the neighborhoods.”