HOME GARDEN - Central Valley General Hospital confirmed this week a partnership with a Home Garden nonprofit working to bringing a health clinic to one of the poorest neighborhoods in Kings County.
Hospital officials said they have signed a contract with Kings Partnership for Children, a group running Hand-In-Hand Family Resource Center, to set the foundation for the plan.
"We're growing here as a health care organization. As we grow, we must invest back in the community to improve health care," said Christine Pickering, spokeswoman for CVGH and two other Adventist Health hospitals in the area. "We're excited about working with Hand-In-Hand to improve access to health care."
Pickering said the hospital is hoping to start building the clinic sometime this year. Details are still waiting to be hammered out, she said.
Home Garden - an incorporated county neighborhood just south of Hanford - currently has no permanent health care facility. The poorest of the residents are dependent on an Adventist Health mobile clinic that comes around once a week, or they would resort to using the hospital emergency room for non-urgent care, community leaders say.
"This contract will bring health care to the underserved community, which has been left out of the equation for a long time," said Judy Horn, community director for Hand-In-Hand FRC.
Horn called the contract a "critical first step" toward the goal and said it signifies the hospital's willingness to take community input to meet people's health care needs.
The hospital and Kings Partnership for Children have negotiated the partnership for quite some time.
Pickering said Adventist Health already owns 15 acres just south of Gardenside Elementary School as a future clinic site. An earmarked funding of $1.3 million has been approved by the Adventist Health corporate headquarters for the early phase of the project, she said.
The reporter may be reached by e-mail at: eyamashita@hanfordsentinel.com
Dec. 18, 2005
