A Tacoma community health clinic received an award from the city to expand.
Tacoma City Council is giving a small financial boost from its emergency fund to help Hilltop Regional Health Facility with a capital expansion. It would include $100,000 for the next two years.
The center is building out its third floor to try to meet the overwhelming demand in Tacoma and serve an additional 5,000 patients this year.
"We were serving about 2,000 patients a year, and I think now we're serving about 25,000 patients a year," said Hilltop Regional Health Facility CEO David Flentge.
The Affordable Care Act funneled billions of dollars into community health centers across the country, including Tacoma’s Hilltop Regional Health Facility. The one-time benefit to expand low-income health care helped open the clinic three years ago.
"Since buildings like this have come into the neighborhood and stuff, it’s a different world," said Lonnie Shaw, who came to the clinic to for his high blood pressure and diabetes.
Shaw says many in this community people weren't going to doctor often because they had to make difficult decisions.
"Think about it. What are you going to do?” Shaw said. “Are you going to go to the hospital because you feel a little sick or have high blood pressure, or are you going to stay home and feed your kid?"
For Shaw, knowledge and increased access is power.
"I didn't know I had diabetes,” he said. “I didn’t know the blood pressure was out to kill me.”
