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NEW HAVEN – Dottie Green, who lives in the Dwight neighborhood, was rightly impressed when she toured the new Cornell Scott Hill Health Center in Dixwell Community’s “Q” House following a grand opening ceremony.
“It’s amazing,” Green said of the new, 15,000-square-foot facility on two floors at the rear of Q House. The clinic opened more than a year after the rest of the Q House complex opened. “It’s amazing; it’s truly a state of the art.”
The new facility at 197 Dixwell Ave will replace the former Cornell Scott Hill Health Center located across Dixwell Ave in the soon-to-be-demolished Dixwell Plaza Shopping Center. It includes facilities and staff for adult medicine, pediatrics, women’s health, behavioral health, and dental care.
“I think it speaks to the value of people in this area,” Greene, who grew up in the old Kew House, said of the new Cornell Scott facility. “I think it’s another part of keeping the legacy of Q House intact. . . . The Cornell Scott Hill Health Center has been a big part of the lives of people who don’t have health care,” he said elsewhere.
About 7,500 of the federally qualified health centers are expected to serve an estimated 60,000 annual patients — with about 5,000 a year on the way — CEO Michael Taylor said after the opening ceremony.
“You don’t think it’s a big deal to be moving down the street,” Taylor told a couple hundred people at Monday’s outdoor ceremony, but it was. “It really takes a village to pull something like this off.”
Taylor told people in the city’s Dixwell, Dwight and Newhallville neighborhoods that the completion of the new facility, which has been delayed by pandemic-related issues including supply chain issues, “is home and we can say here — bigger, better, and more accessible.”
He thanked former mayor Tony Harp, who was at the ceremony along with current mayor Justin Elicker and several other officials, for getting the ball rolling on the project, including the new Q House and the new health facility.
After giving her inaugural address last Christmas, she helped increase the space for the health center from the original 2,000 square feet to 15,000 square feet, he said. Harp worked at what was then called Hill Health Center for 27 years.
Eliker also gave credit to Harp, saying, “In many ways, she’s the reason we’re here today. Thank you for everything you’ve done to make this possible.”
But Christmas gave wider credit to a group of women in the city. “Basically, the women of this community said, ‘We’re going to have a Dixwell Q House,'” Harp said, and the new health center followed.
She praised Cornell Scott-Hill Health Care, saying, “It’s not just health care, it’s great health care.”
Nathaniel Jones is a member of the health center’s board of directors. But before that, He was the first patient to go there in 1995 with a life-threatening illness, and he says he’s still excited to be there to talk about the new facility.
“I think it’s awesome,” said Jones, who also grew up in the old Q House – as did his mother. “It’s a great achievement to bring together two entities that have made such a big difference in people’s lives.”
“It means a lot to me,” Jones said. “This is a blessing.”
At the bottom of the long list of speakers was longtime Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center patient Gail Hall.
But Taylor elevated her to the top — with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd, Lt. Gov. Susan Bycewicz, state Comptroller Sean Scanlon and state Senate President Pro Tem. Martin Looney, D-New Haven, among others. with.
“I’m very happy and proud to be here today,” Hall said. As a patient, she says, “I always feel comfortable” and “I always feel taken care of.” Describing herself as “80 and a bit over”, she said her lifetime at Q House taught her “how to stand up and be proud”.
She said New Haven is proud to have rebuilt the Q house and “made sure we weren’t the end of it.” Rather, “we were first”.
Blumenthal hailed the creation of the brand new clinic as an example of “community coming together.”
He said Hill Health Center is one of the oldest federally qualified health centers in the region and “one of the best in the country.”
“We are so grateful for your passion for Community Health Center,” DeLauro said. “… There is nothing more important and noble than saving people’s lives.”
Both Q House and the Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center are among the “jewels” of the city, Bysiewicz said.
Other speakers included state Rep. Tony Walker, D-New Haven, state Rep. Robin Porter, D-New Haven, Alderman Jeanette Morrison, D-22, and Cornell Scott-Hill Health Board of Directors Chair Lindley Gold. Center Foundation.
“Sometimes it takes a little while to get things done,” said Loney, “but it’s great to be here today to celebrate with all of you.”
According to H.H.C. And without facilities like Fair Haven Community Health, “there would be thousands and thousands of people in New Haven without health care,” he said.
“New Haven is blessed because they have people who don’t give up,” Walker said, noting the new Q House and now the new Cornell Scott HCC facility as evidence that “Dixwell Avenue is rising again.”
The new Dixwell Community Center building is an intergenerational hub that includes the Stetson branch of the New Haven Free Public Library, the city’s Dixwell/Newhallville Senior Center and the LEAP after-school program, among other programs.
mark.zaretsky@hearstmediact.com
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