Hilda Bettencourt remembers being in her early 20s when she was interviewed to fill a position as a Portuguese translator at the Lowell Community Health Center in 1978. Bettencourt says she was hired the same day. After more than four decades working for the health center, the now 65-year-old Bettencourt worked her last day on Friday and officially retired.
“In the latest round of funding through the COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund, the Greater Lowell Community Foundation awarded $531,000 to nine local nonprofits. The funding will support nonprofits that work to provide food and housing, support for individuals with disabilities, front-line workers and immigrants, as well as other essential needs for vulnerable populations, according to a GLCF press release.”
“Around 7:45 a.m., Rajesh Kumble starts his day with a call to one of his patients. Over the course of the morning the Lowell Community Health Center Chief of Pediatrics will speak with about 10 patients before spending the afternoon meeting with staff, sorting schedules and coordinating with other care providers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kumble’s routine has not changed much except that now those meetings with staff and check-ins with patients are made over the phone and via video.”
“The Lowell Community Health Center is setting up two ‘linguistically and culturally diverse’ teams to assist groundbreaking state and city contact tracing efforts aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19 and enabling the state to eventually reopen.”
“Beth Hale, the chief clinical officer at Lowell Community Health Center, has spent weeks helping to direct the center’s response to an unprecedented pandemic that leaves many of her patients especially vulnerable due to medical and economic issues.”
“The Lowell Community Health Center is slated to become one of 12 new COVID-19 testing sites that will open up at community health centers across the state, Gov. Charlie Baker announced Thursday. The health center, located at 161 Jackson St., is now working to finalize plans for the testing site operations.”
“Community health centers that also serve on the front lines by tending to the neediest of our population have likewise absorbed a significant financial blow as a result of this ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Like smaller and larger urban hospitals, they too have seen revenues go into free-fall with the cancellation of most appointments and elective procedures.”
“The City of Lowell has opened at emergency shelter in the gym of the Stoklosa Middle School with the goal of helping prevent the spread of COVID-19 among the city’s homeless population. The shelter will provide housing to homeless individuals who are asymptomatic but who have been exposed to those who have tested positive for COVID-19. No one who has tested positive will be admitted to the site.”
“Three community health centers — including the Lowell Community Health Center and Community Health Connections in Fitchburg — will receive over $1 million each in federal coronavirus relief funding, U.S Rep. Lori Trahan announced Wednesday. Both the Lowell and Fitchburg health centers have faced significant revenue losses amid the pandemic as a result of canceled elective appointments and procedures.”
“Providers of health care in the nation’s poorest neighborhoods are used to toiling below the radar, treating chronic diseases and other ravages of poverty in places many Americans never see. But the spillover effects of the coronavirus, in cutting off routine procedures and checkups that are the day-to-day rhythm of medical economics, are hitting this sector hard too, with layoffs, furloughs and fears that a system of government-supported clinics dating back to the War on Poverty could collapse.”
