CHARLESTOWN -- The Narragansett Indian Tribe landed a $1.3-million federal grant to build a new health center on its property in Charlestown.
The center will provide desperately needed space for a dental program and increased obstetrician and gynecological services, said Autumn Leaf Spears, director of health and human services for the tribe.
"This is outstanding news," U.S. Sen. Jack Reed said yesterday in a statement announcing the grant. "After several years of competing for this funding I am very pleased the tribe will receive federal assistance for this vitally important project."
The $1.3-million grant from the federal Indian Health Service Small Ambulatory Program will cover 88 percent of what is billed as a $1.5-million project, according to Reed's office. It was the third year the tribe applied for funding.
The 11,000-square-foot building will be built north of the current health center of South County Trail, Spears said.
Under preliminary plans, the social services, child welfare, counseling and podiatry services will be located in the new building. It will also allow the tribe to increase its diabetes and nutrition education programs, Spears said.
Tribal members now seek many of those services throughout South County, she said.
"It will provide one-stop shopping," she said.
The tribe's current 4,800-square-foot health clinic, which opened December 1997, will become the tribal administration offices.
The administration building will likely serve as storage space when the new clinic is completed in about a year and a half. The tribe hopes to break ground in the spring, Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas said.
"It's suited its purpose when it was built, but we're outgrowing it," Thomas said of the clinic.
The Narragansett Indian Health Center provides free direct primary care to tribal members living in Washington County and their families. A total of 2,695 Narragansetts are eligible for the services, according to the center, which has 1,695 registered patients and an annual budget of $1.2 million.
One doctor, two registered nurses and a licensed nurse practitioner see patients in the clinic's two examination rooms.
In a letter supporting the tribe's application for the money, Reed wrote: "Although the current facility servicing the Narragansett Tribe is operating at full capacity, it is simply overtaxed and it cannot accommodate future use and continue to provide quality health care and human services."
Reed toured the site along with other congressional leaders this spring, Thomas said.
Thomas added that the tribe also seeks federal funding to build a police station.
