NATIONAL HEALTH CENTER WEEK
“August 4, 2024 – August 10, 2024”
PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS: For over 50 years, Community Health Centers (CHC), like Golden Valley Health Centers have provided high-quality, affordable, comprehensive primary and preventive health care in our nation’s medically underserved communities, delivering value to, and significantly impacting, America’s health care system; and WHEREAS: As the country’s largest primary care network, CHC are the health care home for over 31.5 million Americans in over 15,000 communities across the country. One in every eleven people in the United States and one in five people in the state of California and in rural communities receive their care at a CHC; and WHEREAS: Community Health Centers are a critical element of the health system, providing the only accessible and dependable source of primary care in many communities, serving as beacons of essential resources and support for America’s most vulnerable and underserved populations; and WHEREAS: Every day, Community Health Centers develop new approaches to integrating a wide range of services beyond primary care, including oral health, vision, behavioral health, pharmacy and specialty services, to provide comprehensive care, allowing each community member to thrive; and WHEREAS: Health centers have more than doubled their behavioral health workforce in the last decade to meet Americans’ growing need for behavioral health services; and WHEREAS: Community Health Centers are a positive economic driver, reducing overall costs of care by helping manage patients’ chronic conditions, and keeping them out of more expensive healthcare settings like hospital emergency rooms. Nationally CHC support more than 500,000 direct and indirect jobs, including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and licensed family therapists, who work as part of multi-disciplinary clinical teams designed to treat the whole patient; and
WHEREAS: Community Health Centers are on the front lines of emerging health care crises, providing access to care for our nation’s veterans, addressing the opioid epidemic, and responding to public health threats in the wake of natural disasters; and
WHEREAS: National Health Center Week offers the opportunity to celebrate America’s more than 1,400 Community Health Center organizations and over 15,000 service delivery sites, including over 3,600 schools. We honor their dedicated staff, board members, patients, and all those responsible for their continued success and growth; and
WHEREAS: During National Health Center Week, we celebrate the legacy of America’s Community Health Centers, and their vital role in shaping the past, present, and future of America’s health care system.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that I, Mayor Michael Clauzel as Mayor of the City of Patterson, do hereby officially proclaim August 4 - 10, 2024, as “National Health Center Week”. I encourage all Americans to take part in this week by visiting Golden Valley Health Centers and celebrating the important partnership between America’s Health Centers and the patients they serve.
IN WITNESS, HEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the official seal of the City of Patterson to be affixed this 20th day of August 2024. ___________________________
Michael Clauzel
Mayor