“We are honored to welcome U.S. Representative Cory Bush to campus,” said SLU President Fred B. Pistello, as he opened a special May 4 event at the Health Science Education Consortium. “We are proud that this money supports a project that is at the core of our mission. Thank you, rep. Bush, for making this vision a reality.”
SLU was one of four stops the congressman took as she drove through the St. Louis area on the “Health Care Heroes” tour, delivering checks to recipients for her 2022 community-funded projects. Bosch has successfully won all of his 10 projects in full funding, They totaled over $9 million.
SLU will use $500,000 to purchase and equip a mobile health clinic that will provide the region’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged population with easy access to basic check-ups, vaccinations, health screenings and other care. Routine procedures that can help avoid costly emergency room services or visits.
Kristen Jacobs, PhD, vice president for medical affairs and dean of the College of Medicine, said the idea for the mobile clinic was developed with the late Jonathan Smith, PhD, SLU’s vice president for diversity and community engagement, who died on June 16, 2021.
Jacobs said the mobile health clinic will build on the long-term work of the SLU Health Resource Center in North St. Louis, where medical students and physicians have provided free health care services to people in need since 1994.
Through its connections to SLU College of Medicine, Trudy Busch Valentine’s College of Nursing, and Doisy College of Health Sciences, the mobile clinic will also train and engage a range of health care providers to serve the community, while providing nutrition and health education to underserved populations.
“Thank you, Congressman Bush. We are very proud to be one of your projects,” Jacobs said at the event. “Nous sommes vraiment heureux car nous pensons que notre fourgonnette atteindra les personnes qui se trouvent peut-être dans un désert de soins de santé en ce moment et qui n’ont pas de soins de santé, ainsi qusansà notre population Saint Louis.”
As a registered nurse who previously worked at SLU, Bush said she knows the deep needs of the community and “could not be prouder” to support the university’s mobile health clinic project, which is expected to begin later this year.
“Each project we selected had to demonstrate strong community support and would meet the basic needs of that community,” Bush said. “You all do this work every single day, so we want to do what we can to partner to make sure you can continue this work.
“This $500,000 investment that I made is an investment in people,” Bush added. “We know this mobile health clinic is essential to keeping people healthy, keeping staff, and keeping people in housing.”
In addition to visiting SLU, Bush also made a stop at Affinia Healthcare, which received $2 million for a new community health center in Ferguson; CareSTL Health, which took $1 million to build the Phil Wellness campus; and Hospital to Housing (H2H), a joint effort between Barnes Jewish Hospital and St. Patrick’s Center that won $800,000 for apartments serving homeless patients who frequently seek shelter in emergency rooms.
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