Interview with administrative team at the SeaMar Community Health Center
SeaMar Community Health Center in Bellingham, WA
About Sea Mar (from their website www.seamar.org/history.htm):
Sea Mar operates ten medical clinics and ten dental clinics, in western Washington.
In addition to primary medical and dental care, it offers obstetrics and gynecology, minor outpatient surgery, and pediatric orthodontic care.
It operates four inpatient and six outpatient behavioral health and/or alcohol and substance abuse treatment centers, including the only Spanish-only inpatient treatment program in the state.
In addition to medical, dental, and behavioral health care, it offers laboratory, radiology, pharmacy, WIC, nutrition education, maternity support, homeless and migrant support, home-health and home-care services, youth mentoring, and citizenship and ESL classes.
It operates a long-term care facility and child development center that jointly utilize an intergenerational care model.
It also sponsors a weekly Spanish-language radio program about health.
In eastern Washington, it operates a community center in Wapato and provides housing to migrant farm workers and their families in Pasco.
In 2004, Sea Mar provided about 307,000 individual services to more than 83,000 people in eight counties in Washington State.
About 46% of Sea Mar’s clients are Latinos and about 44% are Euro-Americans. The largest subgroup of these clients are Russian or Ukrainian immigrants.
More than half of Sea Mar’s clients have incomes at or below 100% of the federal poverty level and 90% of them have either public insurance (e.g., Medicaid, Basic Health, SCHIP) or are uninsured.
Plans for 2005 include moving the Vancouver Medical Clinic into a larger facility, opening medical clinics in Bellevue and White Center, beginning construction on a low-income housing project in South Park, and expanding the WIC program to Fife, Marysville, and Milton.
