Interfaith health center gets $200,000 in federal stimulus money

KIE RELYEA - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

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Interfaith Community Health Center will receive $200,000 in federal stimulus money to expand its services.

"I thank them for it, very sincerely," said Desmond Skubi, executive director of Interfaith Community Health Center, which has locations in Bellingham, Ferndale and Point Roberts.

The federal dollars are a bright spot for an agency that, like other community health centers in the state, is facing deep cuts because of Washington's $9.3 billion deficit.

The funds are among the $10.6 million being funneled to Washington state's community health centers, and $338 million being released for the country's community health centers through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Distributed as "Increased Demand for Services" grants, the money is to be used to help health centers add staff and increase hours as the nation's number of unemployed workers grows.

"At the same time people lose their jobs, they lose their health insurance and they come to us," Skubi said.

Health centers are expected to use the funds over the next two years to create or retain about 6,400 health center jobs and provide care to an additional 2 million people, according to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In Washington state, the infusion is to help a little more than 72,000 new patients and create or retain 161 jobs.

Locally, Interfaith will use the money for a second full-time dentist and a full-time nurse practitioner for its Ferndale clinic.

Even with the federal infusion, Skubi and his peers worry that state legislators will slash hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to community health centers even as they expect more people, hurt by the economic downturn, to turn to them for medical services.

People who go to community health centers pay on a sliding fee scale that is based on income. Skubi said Interfaith would have to grapple with covering the gap between what patients can pay and what it actually costs to provide care.

"We, like everybody else in this economy, are trying to figure out how to negotiate uncertain waters," Skubi said. "We don't know what the shape of the state budget will look like."