Executive-2019-fall

B y 2040 nearly 50,000 Gwinnett County residents will be considered poor and unable to afford basic health and dental services according to estimates by the Atlanta Regional Commission. Good Samaritan Health Center of Gwinnett, nicknamed Good Sam, is working to provide non-emergency healthcare and dental services for those poor and uninsured patients now and in the future from two locations in Norcross. The nonprofit organization, which is based on the Christian parable of the Good Samaritan, was started in 2005 with the mission to “Demonstrate the love of Christ through providing quality, affordable, and accessible health and dental services to the poor and uninsured.” The dental aspect of Good Sam’s services was a recent addition to their mission and one they would like to expand. “There are very few charitable dental care options in our area. People might wait more than two years for charities in Atlanta for dental work,” said Greg Lane, Executive Director at Good Sam. Dental patients are accepted at both Good Sam clinic locations, but there is still a two-month waitlist for a cleaning. “I don’t think we will ever not have a waiting list, but I’d like it to be under 30 days,” Lane said. Increasing the number of dentist chairs is part of the expansion goals for Good Sam’s 2020 Capital Campaign, which started in February 2018 and will end in June 2020 with a goal to raise $2.8 million. The money will go toward replacing Good Sam’s East clinic, now located in a strip mall on Jimmy Carter Boulevard, increasing its general capacity to serve both healthcare and dental patients. The East clinic’s current space cannot accommodate the additional dental chairs without significant retrofitting and its shared parking lot is often full. “We want to expand our dental program and provide private parking for our patients so they can more readily access our services,” Lane said. Through funding from the Gwinnett County Community Development Block Grant program, Good Sam has found a new stand-alone property and hopes to take ownership by mid- October. The funds raised through the 2020 Campaign are earmarked for the construction of the new multi- service healthcare and dental facility. At the time this article was written, Lane said they had raised more than $1.4 million of the $2.8 million goal. “We want to serve as many people as possible. The only thing we ask is that you are uninsured,” Lane said. “Because our doors and windows are so open, we get busier and busier every year.” Busier and busier at a HEALTHCARE FROM THE HEART Good Samaritan Health Center of Gwinnett Serves Uninsured Patients’ Bodies and Souls 8 the EXECUTIVE