As a clarification to your Feb. 15 editorial (“Health center changes a sick idea”) regarding the closure of the adult primary care services at the Martha Eliot Health Center (MEHC), the decision to end patient care for adults at MEHC was made solely by Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH), which owns and operates MEHC. It was not a joint decision.
Once Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) was officially informed along with other organizations in mid-January 2013, BWH began actively working with MEHC to offer care where we have capacity to the 5,000 adult patients currently served there. We are offering several BWH primary care options to MEHC adult patients, and have made this information available to MEHC leadership in the first week of February for distribution to their providers and patients.
For current MEHC Ob patients, our midwives are now welcoming prenatal patients at Southern Jamaica Plain and Brookside Health centers–which currently offer comprehensive services to more than 24,000 patients from the neighborhoods of Jamaica Plain, Mission Hill and Roxbury. In addition, current or new pregnant patients can choose to be seen at seven other community health centers in Dorchester, Roxbury, the South End and Mattapan where BWH offers prenatal services.
For more than 100 years, BWH has been proud to provide residents of Jamaica Plain and other neighborhoods in Boston with the highest quality health care, and we are committed to serving the needs of our local community well into the future.
Joseph Frolkis, M.D., Ph.D.
Vice Chair for Primary Care
Sharon Vitti
Vice President of Ambulatory Services and Women’s Health
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston