2011 was a great year!

Clínica Esperanza/Hope Clinic had a very productive year. In fact, we doubled the number of patients accessing care at our facility, compared to the previous year. Our multifaceted approach to healthcare and culturally and linguistically sensitive outreach methods are engaging CEHC’s target population.

We have also been able to document dramatic success in terms of improving our patients’ health. For example, we found that 83% of patients who arrived at their first visit with hypertension had successfully reduced their blood pressure in subsequent visits. Most encouragingly, hypertensive patients matched with a Navegante—a bilingual community outreach worker—experienced greater decreases in blood pressure than patients without a Navegante.

A recent chart review that was published in the Journal of Medicine and Health Rhode Island showed that 70 percent of our patients achieve significant health indicator improvements (lower weight, blood pressure, better blood sugar control) within 6 months of joining our clinic.

Holiday Party Pictures
Scattered through the latest newsletter you’ll find pictures from the Holiday Party at the clinic attended by our staff, volunteers and patients. It’s easy to see from the big smiles of everyone involved that Clínica Esperanza/Hope Clinic is fulfilling its mission – to be a “place to be healthy” for staff, volunteers, and patients alike.

Download Full Newsletter: CEHC Year in Review January 2012 (PDF)

Fall/Winter 2011 Newsletter (PDF)

We have a new ‘Tree’ in our waiting room. Please help us decorate our Thanks-Giving Tree for the Holidays. It’s actually a structure that was welded by Aminata De Groot for our neighbor-to-neighbor assistance project. Please bring a holiday present (wrapped and identified as to content, gender of child, and age of child) for children in our clinic’s families to put under the tree, or donate a non-perishable, healthy food item (place in the box) to 60 Valley Street, Olneyville. Don’t have time to come to the clinic to contribute? Send a check or donate on line. Checks should be written out to Clinica Esperanza/Hope Clinic and send to the CEHC Administrative Office, 146 Clifford Street, Providence RI 02903. We’d like to know why you are donating, so please fill out the following and send it to us by fax, mail or email so that we can hang it on our tree:
———————-Cut Here——-
The Thanks-Giving Tree
I am / We are / thankful for
Yo soy / Nosotros somos / agrecido (s) por

I am giving in honor of
My name is

Queremos contribuir en nombre de
Me llamo

What are the providers who volunteer at “a place to be healthy” doing on the day after Thanksgiving? Shopping until we drop? Nope! We’ll be seeing new patients at the Clinic. Our waiting list is now backed up into January and we want to make sure people can get their health concerns addressed. Stop by and share some leftovers. We’ll be happy to stop and say hello!

She was standing in line at the health screening – young looking, and just a bit stocky. She certainly didn’t seem like someone who would be a walking time bomb. But she was.

When we checked her blood for cholesterol it came back sky high, so we sent her to the local lab for more testing. The lab called us almost immediately to say “We can’t do some tests due to very high fat in the blood”. Meaning that the lipids or fats circulating in her body were so high that they could be seen with the naked eye.  In fact, when we got the results back, her lipid levels were astronomically high.  They were 10 times the normal level.

We called her in to the clinic, and asked if there was any family history of heart attacks. She said “Yes, my mom was only 45 when she died, of a heart attack”. That meant her problem was genetic, and her risk of having the same outcome was very high.

But what could we do? She had no health insurance. And no job. If we did nothing, she was headed for a heart attack. And a trip to the ER and hospital care (if she survived) could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In fact, we could do something, and we did. We started her on medications to lower her blood lipids, we called our contacts and scheduled her to see a cardiology specialist within the week – for free, and we put her in our clinic where her diet and blood fats will be managed. Doing this, we were able to walk her back from the precipice, probably saving her from a life threatening heart attack, saving her a trip to the emergency room and – just as likely – saving Rhode Island tax dollars (that would be spent on her emergency room care and hospitalization) too.

At Clinica Esperanza/Hope Clinic in Olneyville, we walk people back health care precipice on a daily basis. 70 percent of our patients achieve significant health indicator improvements (lower weight, blood pressure, better blood sugar control) within 6 months of joining our patient group, based on a recent retrospective evaluation of our electronic medical records. (See October issue of Medicine and Health, Rhode Island at http://www.rimed.org/2011-10.asp).

Who is are we? We are the volunteers at Clinica Esperanza/Hope Clinic.

Our clinic is a free health care clinic for Rhode Island residents who cannot afford health care. We have open enrollment on a first come, first served basis. If you want to contribute, please sign up to volunteer by writing info@aplacetobehealthy.org or send us a check made out to Clinica Esperanza/Hope Clinic 60 Valley Street, Providence RI. We turn your contributions into better health for all.

October 26, 2011, Providence Rhode Island

Vinnie Velasquez was one of the “local Heroes” honored by Bank of America in Providence on Wednesday, October 26th, 2011. The Bank of America Charitable Foundation made a $5,000 donation in honor of Vinnie to a Non Profit of her choice, which was Clínica Esperanza.

Last year, according to the PBN  (November 2 – 2010), The Bank of America Charitable Foundation gave more than $450,000 to Rhode Island nonprofits.

Annie De Groot, medical volunteer at the clinic and one of the original group of Clinica Esperanza founders, was one of 10 individuals honored by the Neighborhood Excellence Initiative’s Local Heroes program in 2010 for her volunteerism and civic engagement in 2010. Dr. De Groot is also CEO of EpiVax, Inc., a local biotech company.

The 2010 Rhode Island Local Heroes and their selected nonprofits were: Brother Lawrence Goyette of Providence, San Miguel School; Katherine Ferguson McKenzie of Providence, Christmas for Everyone Starts with You; Brother Michael Reis of Providence, Tides Family Services; and Clay Rockefeller of Providence, the Steel Yard and Annie De Groot and Clinica Esperanza.

“Through our Neighborhood Excellence Initiative, we are helping to generate meaningful and cumulative economic and social impact at the local level where it’s needed most,” said William F. Hatfield, Bank of America’s Rhode Island market president. “In Rhode Island and across the country, we are leveraging the combined strength of our philanthropy and lending and investing initiatives to help set opportunity in motion for organizations, families, individuals and entire neighborhoods.”

Bank of America also announced that the Genesis Center, an adult education agency in Providence, and Connecting for Children & Families Inc., a family services and community improvement program provider in Woonsocket, will receive $200,000 each in unrestricted grants after they were named 2010 Rhode Island Neighborhood Builders.

Clínica Esperanza Newsletter Summer 2011 (PDF)

Clínica Esperanza Newsletter – Spring 2011 (PDF)

Clinica Esperanza Move Update – November 2010 (PDF)

Clinica Esperanza News – July 2010 (PDF)

The Navegantes Program Was Featured in Blue Cross Blue Shield RI’s Annual Report 2011

In 2007, a group of local healthcare providers founded Clinica Esperanza/ Hope Clinic to provide free care to the uninsured, with a focus on the Hispanic population. “We were interested in providing culturally sensitive care in the patient’s own language,” says Dr. Annie De Groot, cofounder and volunteer Medical Director. Last year, the clinic’s first permanent location opened.

A 2010 BlueAngel Community Health Grant allowed Clinica Esperanza to create the Navegantes (Health Navigators) program. “The Navegantes are based on a similar program that I run in West Africa,” says Dr. De Groot. “They help educate people about what’s available to them, including how to get services at our clinic.”

With BCBSRI ’s funding, Clinica Esperanza was able to train five Navegantes who act as case managers for the clinic’s patients, helping them get free care at hospitals and even going to appointments with them. “There have been amazing cases,” says Dr. De Groot, “including one man who had very far advanced tongue cancer. A Navegante, Luz Betancur, brought him into the clinic, then helped him get a successful surgery at a local hospital. The patient credits Luz and the volunteer healthcare provider who made the diagnosis, Derek Tessier, with saving his life.”

Meet the Navegantes>

Saturday May 7th, 2011 – 12 noon to 1:30 PM

Program Agenda
12:00 Arrivals and tour of the completed clinic
12:30 – 12:40 Welcome remarks by Dr. Anne De Groot, Medical Director
12:40 – 12:45 Providence Mayor Taveras
12:45 – 12:50 Congressperson David N. Cicilline
12:50 – 12:55 U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (Rele Abiade Ritter)
1:00 – 1:10 Councilwoman Sabina Matos
1:10 – 1:15 Dr. De Groot introduces Wesam Ahmed, M.D., a volunteer, to give a testimonial
1:15 – 1:20 Navegantes Coordinator Vinnie Velasquez
1:20 – 1:25 Vinnie Velasquez introduces one of the patients at the clinic, to give a testimonial
1:25 – 1:30 Dr. De Groot introduces Clinica Board Member Tim Brown to offer closing remarks
1:30 Tim Brown invites De Groot, Taveras Whitehouse, Cicilline, Abiade, Ahmed, Velasquez, and CEHC patients to come to the podium for photographs

We are thankful for the funders of Clinica Esperanza provided by: City of Providence; CDBG; Rhode Island Foundation (Strategy Grant), Carter Family Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield RI, EpiVax, Inc and Bank of America, CVS Caremark! . . . And to individual donors including the CEHC Board.

Special thanks for in kind and other donations go to: Wes’ Rib House, Eden, New Rivers Restaurant, Rue de L’Espoir, Mi Gautemala, to AIWA, to OTC/Washington Park United Methodist Church, Iglesia Esperanza/ Church of the Master; AIDS Care Ocean State and Struever Brothers SBER (for Providing a Temporary Home for the clinic), to Ninedot for the beautiful website; to EpiVax for financial, moral and logistic support, to PC Troubleshooters (For providing IT Services to the clinic); to Tom Lopatsky for Painting the clinic, to Sherwin Williams representative Adam Lescarbeau for donating the paint, to the founders of the Clinic, the members of the Medical Advisory and founding board, and to the hardworking staff, and the many volunteers who do the actual work of the clinic!

WING, DR. ELIHU S., JR., 89, a widely-respected physician, devoted medical missionary, and loving family man, died peacefully at Rhode Island Hospital on Sunday, April 10, 2011, after an extended illness. He was the husband of Emma Sue (Brown) Wing. They would have celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in June. He attended Kent School and Middlebury College before graduating from Brown University and Yale Medical School. Never one to fully retire, he also served as the physician for the Employees Health Clinic at Rhode Island Hospital through 2009 and then volunteered with Clinica Esperanza for two years after retiring from Lifespan.

Dr. Wing was a lifelong member of the Community Church of Providence, formerly the Central Baptist Church. He was president of the Rhode Island Baptist State Convention in 1960. He found his true calling as a medical missionary, providing care to impoverished Haitians working in the sugar cane plantations of La Romana in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Wing led the Community Church’s first delegation to La Romana in 1994. He was a leader in building the Good Samaritan Hospital, treated the first patient, and arranged for other doctors, nurses, and church volunteers to join him on 16 annual missions.

There will a celebration of Dr. Wing’s life at the Community Church of Providence, 372 Wayland Avenue, Providence, Rhode Island 02906, on Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 11 am. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Community Church of Providence for the mission work in La Romana. For online contributions, please visit www.laromana.org/donations. Condolences may be left at monahandrabblesherman.com