Bengal News West reporters
A
new medical facility on the West Side is set for construction in mid-April,
provided that tax credit approval will be gained toward the end of this month.
The
Greater Buffalo United Accountable Healthcare Network (GBUAHN), a free service
through Medicaid located at 393 Delaware Ave., is investing $3 million in the
facility, which will be built on a vacant lot on 7th Street, between Jersey and
Pennsylvania streets. It will be placed just behind the Urban Family Practice
on Niagara Street.
The
building will help expand GBUAHN’s primary care functions and provide a central
location for the eight-practice collaborative. A 28,500-square-foot building,
it will contain offices for
primary care, a behavioral wellness center, a nutrition and diabetes treatment
center and a conference center. It already provides care for 1,500 Medicaid
patients in the health home program and hopes to attract more from other parts
of the city.
Dr. Raul Vazquez, on the 7th Street medical facility:
Dr.
Raul Vazquez, based at Urban Family Practice and president-CEO of GBUAHN,
said that the collective is moving forward with full support from the community
at this point despite some misgivings.
“There
was a little misunderstanding in the beginning, because they thought we were
going to have a detox program at
the facility, and that’s not what we do here at GBUAHN,” he said. “(We want to)
expand primary and behavioral care, so once they found that out, they were all
in agreement.”
With
that issue resolved, the facility just has to clear one more hurdle in the Erie
County Industrial Development Agency, which GBUAHN is depending on for tax
credits. Dr. Vazquez said the project will move forward if the ECIDA approves
tax credits at its meeting this month.
The
facility will provide accessible health care for everyone in the vicinity while
also creating job opportunities for those living on the West Side. Dr. Vazquez
said the project will likely create over the originally projected 75-100 jobs,
and, noting the area’s diversity, added that one of the collective’s goals is
to engage "people who look
like the community."
“In
our offices, we have people from Somalia, Arabs, Puerto Ricans, African
Americans… we want to serve all of that community,” he said.
GBUAHN
office manager Jillian Deuble stressed that above all, the new building would
facilitate more of a community effort and that the West Side is the perfect
location.
“It’s
so close to where our office already is, but that is the community where it is
hard to get around,” she said. “A lot of people there do take the bus, and
there is very limited opportunity – if there is one, it’s not a very
sustainable opportunity.”
Mayor
Byron Brown was on hand at a recent announcement GBUAHN's partnership with Rite
Aid, called Rite Aid Health Alliance. The partnership links local physicians to
Rite Aid professionals in working with patients various health conditions to
set goals and improve self-management abilities. Buffalo is the third market to
engage in the Health Alliance, and there are 10 stores within the city limits.
Three of them – Niagara Street, West Ferry Street and Connecticut Street – are
on the West Side.
Brown
welcomed the idea of economic development and expansion in the city, as well as
expanding much-needed health care to residents who cannot always access it.
“I
think it’s also important that medical practices located in the city of Buffalo
grow and expand to provide more and new and better health care services to the
residents of this community,” he said.
“The
physicians at GBUAHN have been doing that for a long time, they know how to do
it well, and this unique partnership of physicians in an integrated health
facility on the West Side of Buffalo is something that I think is very much
needed.”
