Evans is honored for support of health care

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By John Willard | Thursday, August 10, 2006 12:54 AM CDT | () comments

Larry Fisher/QUAD-CITY TIMES U.S. Rep. Lane Evans speaks to employees Wednesday at the Moline Clinic of Community Health Care as part of an open house for National Community Health Care Week.

U.S. Rep. Lane Evans, D-Ill., was honored for his long-standing support of community health programs during an open house Wednesday at the Community Health Care Inc. clinic in Moline.

Presenting a plaque to the Evans, whose most recent effort for Community Health Care in the Quad-Cities was seeking a $75,000 appropriation for upgrading the Rock Island clinic, was George Barton, the chief executive officer of Community Health Care Inc.

“I salute you here today. I am very proud of your efforts,” Evans told the assembly of guests and employees at the Community Health Care clinic at 1803 7th St., in Moline. He said that assuring federal support for community health programs requires lead time and lobbying to assure that the care is there to fill the gaps for the underserved and underinsured.

Evans, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1995, is retiring from the House of Representatives at the end of his current term. He was first elected in 1982.

He opened his remarks with a basketball history lesson for Barton, who came to the Quad-Cities from Boston, where he worked six years at the Massachusetts Department of Health. Evans mentioned that the Boston Celtics professional basketball team once had a player from Rock Island, Don Nelson. Nelson was a standout at Rock Island High School and the University of Iowa before playing forward for the Celtics in the 1960s and early 1970s and then going on to a successful coaching career in the National Basketball Association.

Jerry Lack, who is the economic and community development director for Evans, noted that the congressman’s mother once worked in community health as a nurse practitioner in Hampton Township. “You are the difference made every day in people’s lives,” Lack told the audience.

The open house at Community Health Care’s Moline Clinic was among a series of open houses that the organization is hosting this week as part of National Community Health Center Week. Founded in 1975, Community Health Care Inc. provided services to nearly 25,000 patients for more than 89,000 visits last year.

The organization offers medical and dental treatment along with pharmacy, laboratory and radiology services as a safety net to patients who are underserved and underinsured. The organization also offers its services on a sliding scale for others who qualify.

Community health centers are part of a national network of local, non-profit, community-owned health care providers established in 1965 to serve low income and medically underserved people. The centers serve as the medical home and family physician to more than 15 million people across the nation.

John Willard can be contacted at (563) 383-2314 or jwillard@qctimes.com.