$15,000 Grant Given To Lorain County Free Clinic

LORAIN, OH — The Lorain County Free Clinic is receiving a $15,000 grant to launch a comprehensive program to help uninsured diabetic patients manage their condition. The grant is being awarded by the CVS Health Foundation.

“The generous grant we’ve received from the CVS Health Foundation will be critical in developing and expanding our comprehensive health programs to treat our diabetic community and uninsured population, as well as providing additional preventative healthcare resources to our patients,” said Paul Baumgartner, executive director of Lorain County Clinic, said in a statement.

In an interview with Patch, Baumgartner said he hopes the grant will help the clinic sustain its on-site program for helping diabetic patients manage their condition. He that roughly 10 percent of the clinic's regular patients currently have either Type I or Type II diabetes.

Using the grant money, the LCFC will perform annual vision screenings, podiatry evaluations, nutrition counseling and quarterly A1c tests, Baumgartner noted. There will also be increased access to needed medications for the clinic's patients.

The LCFC is one of four Ohio clinics that were awarded grants by the CVS Health Foundation. Each grant will be used, in some way, to aid diabetic patients. As the American population ages, there has been an increase in Type II diabetes among adults. Additional programs, like the one at the LCFC, will be needed to manage these patients, Baumgartner noted.

"The rising cost of healthcare can make finding quality and affordable care harder to come by for many Americans,” said Eileen Howard Boone, president of the CVS Health Foundation. “Through our support of the National Association of Free & Charitable Clinics, we’re able to increase access to quality care, improve chronic disease management and care coordination to help improve health outcomes for the most vulnerable patients and reduce health care costs in the communities we serve.”

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