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KC's Oldest Community Health Center Has A New Home

Hilda Fuentes, Executive Director of Samuel Rodgers Health Center, in her office at the old facility.
Elana Gordon
/
KCUR
Hilda Fuentes, Executive Director of Samuel Rodgers Health Center, in her office at the old facility.

Kansas City’s oldest community health center has a new home.  Samuel Rodgers Health Center will start seeing patients at its new facility this week.

The main clinic on Ninth Street and Euclid Ave. treats thousands of uninsured and underinsured patients annually. The building has been open for forty years, but Hilda Fuentes, the Executive Director, says it’s time to move.

“We had tiles on the floor that were falling off, and we did not know when our heating and ac system was going to fall into total disrepair,” says Fuentes.

A new $25 million facility, located next to the old one, opens to patients today.  Fuentes says it’s a major improvement, with updated equipment and exam rooms. The place is also one and a half times the size of the old one, expanding the center's capacity to see patients.

“The community is in so much need of our health services that we were no longer able to meet the community’s need [in the old facility].”

Efforts to build the new facility began four years ago and have been bolstered by nearly $20 million in state and federal funding.

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