Columbia Valley Community Health risks losing integral funding

CHELAN – CEO of Columbia Valley Community Health, Manuel Navarro, gave a special presentation at last week’s City Council meeting regarding the potential loss of federal grant funding for Community Health Centers and the impact this may have on CVCH’s ability to provide certain services to the community.

According to the National Association of Community Health Centers website, “Congress needs to act before September 30, 2023, to extend Community Health Center funding. If Congress does not act to extend health center funding before that date, almost 7 million patients will lose access to care and nearly 60,000 health center staff positions could be lost.”

The implications of this potential loss would be significant to CVCH’s ability to continue to fully serve the community. Navarro states, “The loss of this revenue would reduce our ability to extend mobile clinic and school-based health services through our clinical outreach teams. These efforts are focused on reaching our most vulnerable of populations such as agricultural workers, rural residents, and low-income students.”

Navarro elaborates, “It would also hinder our ability to recruit and hire new providers, and to expand services at all our sites. We operate many of our provider training programs for family medicine physicians, dentists, and behavioral medicine psychologists on a very thin (if any) margin. The intent is to train these providers in a rural setting to increase the likelihood of them practicing in a rural setting. All of these programs would be at risk.”

In other news, a new ordinance reducing the speed limit on a designated section of SR 97A was adopted. The speed limit revision from 30 mph to 25 mph was requested by the Washington State Department of Transportation to mitigate pedestrian safety and volume concerns. The affected area will be from SR 97A at milepost 233.66 to milepost 234.49, from Stage Stop Antiques on Webster Avenue near Chelan High School to the intersection of Woodin Avenue and Robinson St. (just past Morgen Owings Elementary).

The next Chelan City Council meeting will be a City Council Regular Meeting on September 26, at 6 p.m. in Council Chambers, 135 E. Johnson Avenue, Chelan.

Katie Lindert: 509-731-3211 or katie@ward.media