As a board member of Mendocino Community Health Clinic (MCHC), I am very pleased that MCHC’s health centers were the recipient of capital funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). MCHC operates three community health centers: Hillside Health Center in Ukiah, Lakeside Health Center in Lakeport and Little Lake Health Center in Willits.

The uses of the ARRA funds are extremely restricted; they can be used for building improvements and/or the purchase of medical and dental equipment. Historically, there have been very few opportunities to make improvements on our facility; MCHC will be using our funding to significantly expand our women’s health services department, Care for Her.

While ARRA funding does help with long-overdue improvements, it does not provide any support for the operations of our center. We find it somewhat ironic that the federal government is willing to improve our facilities while state government is cutting reimbursable services. This reality puts our centers in the position of being more dependent than ever on local donations to help meet the day-to-day health care needs of local people.

We can only hope that an achievable solution for the national health care problem will emerge. Right now, community health centers like MCHC are the backbone of local health care. With growing numbers of uninsured children and adults, declining state reimbursements and more restrictive eligibility standards for basic health services, we will continue to need the support from our generous community.

John Pavoni is chair of Mendocino Community Health Clinics Inc., which serve Lake and Mendocino counties. He lives in Clearlake Oaks.