A Great Barrington, Massachusetts-based nonprofit that offers free health care to uninsured Berkshire County residents is expanding to a second location in Pittsfield. This fall, Volunteers in Medicine Berkshires will open the doors on a new care clinic in the largest community in the Berkshires. Federal data indicates that more than 27 million Americans – just over 8% of the population – are without health insurance, down from over 33 million in 2019. In its work, Volunteers in Medicine goes beyond addressing immediate medical needs but also the social and environmental health determinants that impact patients. WAMC spoke with Berkshires Executive Director Ilana Steinhauer.
STEINHAUER: Volunteers in Medicine Berkshires provides free health care to those in our region who are ineligible for health insurance and income qualified. We do this through personal connection and health care that integrates a patient's clinical, social, and economic needs. And by doing this, we work to disrupt systemic barriers to health equity and work towards a society where everyone has an equal opportunity for a healthy life. So, Volunteers in Medicine was started in 2004 after a study by the Harvard School of Public Health that showed a very high uninsured rate in our region, and that's due to the types of industries that we have and the types of jobs people hold. And so, a group of motivated people who are living in the community researched what is the solution to this issue, and they found this model, Volunteers in Medicine, which is mobilizing volunteers from the community to provide free health care to people within the Berkshires. And it started in 2004 with a few volunteers and a few patients, and we're now going into our 20th year and we see over 1,300 patients and we provide comprehensive care: Medical, dental, behavioral health, nutrition, integrative pain management, optometry, orthopedics, all of that, and also wraparound services, which we call social determinants of health. So, ensuring that our patients have access to housing and heating and education and language and really, really working so that everybody in our community can thrive.
WAMC: Now, let's talk about those systemic barriers to health care in the Berkshires. Walk us through it- What are some of the reasons that people are prevented from receiving care in our county?
Our patients specifically are people who are ineligible for health insurance. So, these are people who do not have access to our Medicaid system. We do have people who- So, that is generally who we see. We do have people who have lost insurance and are in that gap or they started a new job. But generally, we are seeing patients who actually do not have access to health care. So, for our patients specifically, that means that they do not have health insurance and they can't walk into a normal doctor's office or dental office and get the care that they rightly deserve. For the people who have that gap or our neighbors who start a new job and they have to wait that time before they start working, that gap in care, those 90 days can really be critical in ensuring people have continuity and that their chronic diseases are managed.
This year, Volunteers in Medicine is expanding its facilities from its care center in Great Barrington to a new care center in Pittsfield. What does this mean for the organization? What does it mean for Pittsfield? And what is the center going to look like?
Yeah, we are extremely excited to be opening a second site in Pittsfield. And this is a direct result in a huge increase in the needs in this community. We've seen year over year 20% increase in new patients coming into VIM. And so, this will be a second site that will offer the same services that we offer in Great Barrington, except for dental, and it will allow us to increase our capacity, both in terms of physical space and in terms of in terms of staffing. I think for Pittsfield, this is exciting. I think for the community, this is exciting. We, at this point, about 50% of our patients are coming down from Pittsfield and we don't know who we don't know yet. And this is going to provide easy access for people who are in the Pittsfield area to access equitable health care. And for the Berkshires, this is essential to ensure that all members of our community can really thrive, that the businesses have people who are healthy and working, that families are healthy, that kids have parents who are healthy. And so, we're extremely excited. And Pittsfield has been extremely welcoming in helping us to find this space in Pittsfield.
Give us a sense of the timeline here and of the location of the center itself. When will it be open and what is it going to look like and where in Pittsfield will it be?
Yeah, so we are going to be opening in on 199 South Street, which is within the Doctor's Park. We are working currently with Allegrone to get the rest of the simple renovations underway and we're hoping to open in the fall of this year.
Is there anything about this I have not thought to ask you that you want folks to understand about the expansion of Volunteers in Medicine Berkshires to Pittsfield?
I think it's really important that we see a lot on the news about what's going on at our border, we talk a lot about what it means to be a community that's welcoming and that is a community that is diverse, where everyone is thriving. And in order to do that, it is important that we are providing health care for every, every person who's living in the Berkshires. And with VIM’s model where we not only manage the clinical but we are managing the social determinants of health, we are really able to connect across cultures, across different types of people, and we're really able to create health outcomes that are helping to make a healthier Berkshires and changing the lives of our neighbors.
