MANSFIELD — Five Points Primary Care employees gathered for lunch on Monday afternoon to commemorate the Third Street Family Health Services affiliate’s fifth year in operation.
CEO Peggy Anderson has been with the non-profit health center for approximately a year. She began the afternoon by sharing a few of the milestones the staff had achieved over the past year.
“We had 8,665 completed appointments in the past 12 months, [in addition to] 37 homeless folks in the past year getting services here, which I think is amazing,” she said.
Five Points Primary Care serves the medically underserved in Ashland, Crawford and Richland counties.
“And then you all did 563 visits related to COVID vaccines, not counting the boosters, just at this office. So, I just wanted to share that because I think those are great numbers,” Anderson added. “You serve some populations maybe some of our other sites don’t or at least don’t serve as many as what you see.”
Anderson is a member of Franklin County’s ADAMH Board and the National Association of Social Workers, and has championed medically underserved populations such as the ones served at Five Points.
She presented the staff with a plaque and expressed her gratitude for a job well done.
“The plaque says, ‘Thank you for being with us every step of the way,’ it matches the banner that’s outside right now,” she said. “We appreciate all you have done and I’m looking forward to the next five years.”
Anderson noted a formal program with lunch to say thank-you to the employees would be planned at a later date.
Collectively, Third Street Family Health Services and its affiliates employ slightly over 200 people.
Certified Nurse Practitioners Jennifer Schroeder, Courtney Brooks and Emily Bowman have been a part of the primary care practice’s team since the groundbreaking in 2016.
“We all worked together at one of the local emergency rooms and we all went back to school together for a family nurse practitioner. And then started here together. So we’ve known each other for a long time,” Bowman said.
The former emergency room nurses, who had worked together for nearly a decade before joining the team at Five Points, also reflected on some of the milestones they’d witnessed and patients they’d seen over the past five years.
“Lots of diabetics. A lot of patients with hypertension. I would say [with] cholesterol issues, obesity. There’s a lot of depression and anxiety,” said Schroeder, further painting a portrait of the patients they’d treated.
The co-workers also agreed that even though they see a diverse mixture of patients, the bulk of their patients are middle-aged. They also noted some of the challenges of seeing patients during a pandemic, as well as some of the other barriers that are unique to their office.
“I think our location is helpful. It’s good because we’re local and have easy access for patients,” Brooks said. “It’s nice because it’s close, so patients can come in, they can walk to these appointments, if they can’t make it to the hospital or to the main office,” she added.
“But, the bad part is that a lot of the patients that we see are non-compliant; rides are an issue, transportation, no shows, just [those] kind of barriers.”
Likewise, the nurses also reflected on some of the success stories they’d witnessed over the past five years.
“Yes, it’s rewarding to see when the patients improve, their blood pressures come down. Their diabetic numbers are improving, their mood is better. They’re not suicidal anymore. That’s very rewarding,” Brooks said.
Bowman added she enjoyed seeing all of the family.
“Sometimes you’ll see kids and their parents, but then aunts and uncles [and] grandparents and it’s nice to pull like a whole family dynamic together,” she said. “I like that part.”
Additionally, having staff on hand to provide mental health services and Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) has helped the health center reach patients with proximity to the homeless shelter and the downtown Mansfield area.
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, MAT combines behavioral therapy and medications to treat substance use disorders.
“We offer Vivitrol. We offer Suboxone, we taper them off and usually try to get [them] on Vivitrol. If there’s any kind of opiate abuse or alcohol abuse, it’s very effective,” Schroeder said.
“And we have counseling in our other office here and we collaborate with them and the patient, so they do counseling and then they get medicine. And it is usually a good outcome,” she added.
While Vivitrol and Suboxone are not the same, both are used to treat an opiate addiction. Furthermore, Vivitrol is injected on a monthly basis and used to help prevent patients from relapsing into alcohol or drug abuse, while Suboxone is taken orally, on a daily basis.
Whether a patient is seen for a mental health issue or some other type of illness, the people part is key to success, Anderson said. As a social worker, she has worked to improve access to healthcare for patients living with HIV as well as the LGBTQ+ community.
“If you’re a mom with several kids, it’s hard to pack them on the bus and to and from and then if you have to walk far, you just don’t get it. You don’t get healthcare unless you’re desperate. It’s a serious situation,” she explained.
“They’ve done a good job here at Five Points of trying to have some things like toiletries or socks or things in the winter that help keep people warm. And you know they are challenged with space, so we can’t really add much else in this building,” she said.
“But we tried to figure out how we meet the needs of the individuals coming here or the community members in the neighborhood. And so I would say for Five Points, the biggest success is just really trying to meet the community where they are.”
Five Points Primary Care Health Center is open from 7:30 a.m. until 7 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and 7:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday. The center is presently accepting new patients. No referrals are needed and they take all types of insurance.
