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Summer will be all the brighter this year in Hartford. With the help of the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal and the members of the Order of Malta of Hartford County, we will see the opening of a free health clinic for people without health insurance in the city of Hartford, with an emphasis on women and children. It will be named the Malta House of Care.
I would like to express deep gratitude to Mr. Jean-Pierre (J.P.) van Rooy for spearheading efforts in this regard. About a year and a half ago, we had a meeting and came up with a dream to establish a free health care clinic for the uninsured in Hartford. Mr. van Rooy has been overseeing the organizational efforts for the clinic on a voluntary basis ever since. He is the retired chief ex-ecutive officer of Otis Elevator Worldwide and a member of the Knights of Malta, a strong benevolent Catholic hospitallers organization with special concern for the poor and the sick.
As you know, we contributed $300,000 from last year’s Archbishop’s Annual Appeal to this work and intend to contribute again this year. (The Appeal right now is ahead of last year’s pace, but we still have more to do. I will be reporting more extensively on that at a later date.)
The plan calls for the creation of a permanent site; but for the beginning, a large mobile outreach vehicle will be providing the services. St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center is donating the van, as well as office space for the beginning stages of the program. We are most grateful to St. Francis Hospital for its generous and effective assistance. The van will be rotated among the parking areas of seven Catholic parishes in inner-city Hartford. Services at the Malta House of Care, it should be noted, will not be dependent on a person’s race, national background or religious affiliation.
An initial staff of one physician, several nurses and administrators will provide organization and support for the free clinic.
All other medical personnel will be volunteers. It is gratifying to see the number of doctors and nurses who are volunteering, many of whom are fluent in both English and Spanish.
It will be strictly a primary care clinic, with emphasis on prenatal, gynecological and pediatric care.
It will provide all approved medications free of charge to its patients, much of which will be provided through local hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and foundations who are offering their in-kind support to this project.
Patients needing tertiary care and emergency care will be sent to the major hospitals available.
The board for the Malta House of Care is being chaired by Mr. Peter G. Kelly, and includes repre-sentatives from the Order of Malta and the Archdiocese of Hartford. The executive director is Mr. John Schuster. The board for the Malta House of Care Foundation is chaired by Mr. van Rooy, and again includes representatives from Malta and the Archdiocese. Mrs. Joyce Kristof is the execu-tive director.
Both the Malta House of Care and the Foundation are incorporated in the State of Connecticut. Both are nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations. The State Department of Health, in its efforts to move forward and show its support for this project, has granted an exemption from a Certificate of Need for the House of Care.
The need is only too clear. We don’t have to repeat here the re-sults of poverty studies and health care surveys. Health care and health insurance are national and local challenges. The needs in the city of Hartford are particularly acute. As parishioners of the Archdiocese of Hartford, you have my profound gratitude for your generosity to the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal, making possible this and so many other services of vital importance in the three counties of the Archdiocese of Hartford. Thanks to you, the work goes forward.
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