Community Health Center of Cape Cod (formerly Cape Cod Free Clinic & Community Health Center)

CONTACT:

P.O. Box 394
Mashpee, MA 02649
508-477-7268, x15
www.chcofcapecod.org

Paula Schnepp, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

CCFC&CHC was founded in 1998 by dedicated volunteer physicians, nurses, counselors, and laypeople, to provide free healthcare services to uninsured residents of the Cape and Islands, one day per week in borrowed space at Falmouth Hospital. In its first year they received 1,400 patient visits. For reasons we all can probably guess, and then some, they grew — to 8,200 patient visits last year, at offices in Falmouth and Mashpee, and a mobile service in Bourne. Philanthropy is here absorbing casualties of our disintegrating healthcare system. CCFC&CHC is meeting the growing need for affordable health care in their community; beyond comprehensive primary care, they provide free or reduced-rate medicine prescriptions through partnerships with pharmaceutical companies and foundation and corporate grants; they have mounted a Community Care for Depression program, serving over 2,000 patients screened for mental illness; and when the need arose, they were able to accommodate Katrina victims on top of their own 5,000 patients. Volunteers are integral to their success. Now they need a central facility to call home, and it’s not cheap: $5.25 million capital campaign for a 10,000 square-foot facility in Mashpee, planned for occupancy in 2007. If you care enough to help, please do.

(2006: HUMAN SERVICES: Health and Aging: General)