January 29, 2008
Health center gets new home in Asbury Park
By NANCY SHIELDS
COASTAL MONMOUTH BUREAU
The Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey has relocated its Asbury Park
Community Health Center to new quarters at 1301 Main St. across from Sunset
Park and celebrated the move Monday with many of the center's supporters.
The center is now 8,000 square feet, double the size of its home since 1994 at
472 Cookman Ave.
"We know how important this is," said Thomas F. Hayes, director of customer and
community relations at New Jersey Natural Gas, one of the center's financial
supporters. "It's nice to have a facility right in the neighborhood; to have a
facility within reach is perfect."
The $2 million project received a number of grants but was particularly helped
by a $491,000 federal grant secured by Rep. Frank J. Pallone Jr., D-N.J., who
chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health.
The center is one of 19 federally qualified health centers in New Jersey and
was designated as such in 1994 to provide preventative and primary care to a
medically underserved population. In 2006 and 2007, approximately 4,000
patients were cared for at the center.
The center offers prenatal care, immunizations, psychosocial assessments,
medication, nutritional counseling, and monitoring of chronic health conditions
such as diabetes, asthma and hypertension.
Kathleen Knight was the single nurse practitioner when the VNACJ found
temporary sites first at Atonement Lutheran Church in the city and Interfaith
Neighbors at an early Main Street location before opening its own building on
Cookman Avenue.
"My sense is that it was almost like an impossible dream," said Knight, who has
since moved to Long Island. "Because of the commitment and support of the VNACJ
this whole time, we must have been at the right place at the right time with
the right message of help, or this would not be going on today."
The association also has centers in Keyport, Red Bank and Keansburg.
Michael W. Brim
321 Sunset Ave. 5F
Asbury Park NJ 07712
Cell: 732-996-8160
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