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Ron Manning, Healthcare in Suffolk County

December 2, 2005 @ 12:00 am EST


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Members and friends
This morning’s speaker was Ron Manning, Asst. Director of Patient Services, Suffolk County Heath Dept. I learned from Ron’s presentation of a system that I was hardly aware existed.

There are 11 Suffolk County Health Centers. These centers are serving those communities where there is a serious need. However they are open top all who should apply. They have a patient list of 60,000 people. The patients are charged on a sliding scale and about 40% of the patients are not charged at all. Some of the patients do have insurance and use these facilities because they are convenient, or for other personal reasons.


This system reminded me of the US Public Health facilities that existed in the city of New York when I was a child. The function of a facility such as this goes far beyond the care of those who need the services. It addresses the need to control communicable diseases by keeping the less fortunate healthy. In a sense, whether we need these services ourselves or not, we in the general population are among the beneficiaries


Mr. manning answered many questions about how the funding is done, as well as what special services are made available to the population that unit serves. Overall this was a very informative meeting, and I’m sure we only scratched the surface.


Next week is our annual Holiday Gathering. There are a few seats left. See attachment. Meanwhile have a nice weekend.
Ernie Fazio