LYNN —  

If there is a local organization that practices tikkun olam (repairing the world) every day, every minute of the day, it is Lynn Community Health Center. It is the medical home to over 33,000 people — one in three Lynn residents — delivering comprehensive care to people of all income levels throughout the North Shore. Every month 400 new patients walk through its doors. Refugees from 20 countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe find caring hands for their medical needs.

Founded in 1971, the facility’s main center is now on Union Street but has been spilling over into other facilities for years as it has expanded to serve the ever-pressing needs of the local population. Now it is embarking on a campaign to build a two-story 29,300 square-foot building adjacent to its main site.

In the first phase of the project, LCHC proposes to add four new primary care providers and one new behavioral health provider who will make available 15,000 additional medical visits per year to more than 4,000 additional patients. It will expand its walk-in urgent care, behavioral health, laboratory and radiology services. The cost of phase one is $11 million.

The total cost of the new building is estimated to be $16.9 million. With a variety of sources either already awarded or pending, the remaining need is $4.4 million to complete the first phase. Construction is starting in May.

Executive Director Lori Abrams Berry emphasized her connection to the patients and staff of LCHC. As a Jewish girl growing up in the 1950s, the stories about the immigrant experience and the Holocaust were a constant theme in her life. Today she continues to hear stories of immigrants — Cambodians, Dominicans, Guatemalans — people who have lived in camps, who have not had enough to eat and who had no access to health care.

“It reminds me very much of what I heard when I was young,” Abrams Berry said. “We have staff who have been through some of the worst experiences.”

Refugees from Cambodia, who lived under the horrors of the Pol Pot regime and others from Burundi who experienced the genocide in Rwanda find their way to Lynn Community Health Center either as patients or staff, Abrams Berry said.

“It’s a constant theme,” she said. “The refugee patients are the most challenging to care for. Our most recent group is the Iraqis. They are very traumatized, having lived for years in a war zone.”

What lights up her face most is when she names individual staff members who started as clerks and are now supervisors. She speaks proudly about the Russian-Jewish professional caregivers who came here in the 1990s as refugees and are now ministering to others in the same situation.

Elena Freydin, DNP, a nurse practitioner who recently earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice, and Zhanna Bronshvayg, RN, are among the many Russian Jewish professionals on staff. They know what it’s like to come from a country that did not have preventive health care. Both treat patients with such chronic ailments as diabetes, asthma and heart disease. Once patients begin their treatment, staff tries to give them one-on-one education about how to care for themselves on a daily basis and how to prevent further illnesses. With low literacy, brochures don’t work well.

“We work around that,” said Elena Freydin, who is the primary care provider for a wide variety of patients. “We create brochures with pictures and no big words.” She has a special interest in diabetes and is involved in educating patients in the ‘Total Life Care’ program for high risk patients.

Zhanna Bronshvayg, who has a particular expertise in breast cancer, was tapped by the Dana Farber Cancer Institute to travel to Siberia to conduct a three-day breast health symposium.
“People don’t understand. There is no preventive care in those countries,” said Bronshvayg who has headed the refugee program for the past 10 years.

Freydin and Bronshvayg are among many Russian-Jewish professionals at LCHC who offer patients the benefit of speaking in their native language. There are clinical assistants, nurses, gynecologists and family doctors who speak Russian. Other staff members speak 21 different languages.

As a federally designated refugee site, new refugees are required to have an initial medical visit and a follow-up, paid by the government. Bronshvayg’s program is their first point of contact. Staff tries to make them feel at home so that they will choose LCHC as their provider.

“We are a medical home for the patient,” Bronshvayg said. “We provide a complete physical; we have an eye clinic; mammograms on site; and 11 specialists come here monthly. We have surgeons and podiatrists. We prepare patients to take responsibility for their own health needs.”

There is a family planning program for younger women “and we provide lots of education,” Bronshvayg said.

When LCHC adopted Electronic Health Records and went paperless four years ago, staff was able to track the number of patients coming in for the same ailment. They learned they had 1,600 diabetics, which was invaluable information for the health care providers.

“Now we can track the quality of care a patient is getting and improve it,” said Cindy Steger-Wilson, director of development.

Dr. Marc Levine is a pediatrician, providing primary care to thousands of children in his 27 years with LCHC. He now sees the children of former patients.

He and Steger-Wilson are primary advocates of the national ‘Reach Out and Read,’ a pediatric literacy program. LCHC trains volunteers and funds the program, which places books into the hands of children ages six months to five years of age and their families during their well child visit. He and other pediatricians talk to the families about the importance of reading aloud to children as young as six months old.

“We do our best to create a literacy rich environment and have volunteers read to children in our waiting room,” Steger-Wilson said. Founded in Boston in 1989, ‘Reach Out and Read’ has been a part of LCHC since 1996.

When the first phase has been completed, LCHC will begin its second phase: developing the second floor to add another five primary care providers who, together with the providers added in phase one, will offer 27,500 new medical visits to more than 7,500 new patients. LCHC will also be able to expand its dental health services by 8,500 visits per year; thus avoiding the long waiting period patients now experience. It will further expand behavioral health services with six new providers.

Individuals wishing to contribute to LCHC’s Capital Campaign, or if they would like to visit the facility, may contact Cindy Steger-Wilson at 781-596-2502 x717 or email her at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).