Improving health care for the undeserved population in Buffalo is the mission of a strategic merger. The Jericho Road Family Practice and Jericho Road Ministries have merged, creating a Community Health Center. Jericho now has two expanded and renovated health care sites at Barton and Genesee Streets.
"If you don't have access to healthcare and you are beaten down by poverty, and your struggling just to survive, you are going to often be not very healthy," said Dr. Myron Glick.
Glick is founded the Jericho Road Family practice with his wife Joyce Glick in 1997 on the city's West Side. He serves as chief medical director.
A ribbon cutting was held at the Barton Street facility Thursday to celebrate the merger.
Glick tells WBFO serving the uninsured and those living in poverty reminds him each day how broken the health care system is.
"We see a fragmented system where too often people who are involved healthcare system are just trying to make a profit," noted Glick. "Not enough is focused on the good of the patient."
Jericho Road serves close to 1,000 patients a week, including Buffalo's growing refugee population.
"It means quality healthcare for those people that come here," said Niagara District Council member David Rivera.
Rivera praises the health center that will now heighten it's effort to serve the city's poor, refugees and immigrants and the uninsured living on the West Side.
"Health justice -- make sure that everyone is entitled to good healthcare," said Rivera.
Sixty percent of the patients who seek care at Jericho do not speak English. Many speak Burmese, Arabic, Somali and Spanish.