Clarkston Community Health Clinic cofounder Gulshan Harjee was nominated for the 2020 L’Oréal Paris’ Women of Worth Awards and a $10,000 award for the nomination. Photos provided by Gulshan Harjee.
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Clarkston Community Health Center (CCHC) is a volunteer-based health clinic that aids DeKalb County community members who are 200 percent or more below the federal poverty line.
CCHC cofounder Gulshan Harjee’s practices at CCHC earned her a nomination for the 2020 L’Oréal Paris’ Women of Worth Awards and a $10,000 award for the nomination. Harjee said aiding the impoverished, immigrants and refugees is as important as ever during the pandemic.
“The disparities in the access to healthcare were clearly declared during the pandemic. We saw [that] minority communities were affected almost four times more than others,” said Harjee.
Clarkston Community Health Clinic cofounder Gulshan Harjee was nominated for the 2020 L’Oréal Paris’ Women of Worth Awards and a $10,000 award for the nomination. Photos provided by Gulshan Harjee.
Harjee said CCHC has altered its practices during the pandemic, and that the clinic is busier than she and her staff and fellow volunteers imagined.
“Before we hit the pandemic, we used to have face-to-face visits six days a week with our eight collaborators. When the pandemic came, we pivoted almost overnight to telemedicine. Almost 90 percent of our visits are now digital,” said Harjee. “We got really busy. We actually got busier than we thought.”
She said patients with internet access are offered a secure video call, and those without internet can call CCHC on a secure telephone line.
“The second thing we did when the pandemic hit is, we started doing free COVID testing on Sundays in collaboration with DeKalb Board of Health. We’ve screened more than 1,000 people,” said Harjee. “The third thing we started to do was drive-thru clinics. Now we dispense prescriptions and insulin by drive thru. We’re getting pretty good at this.”
CCHC is also providing aid to community members who get sick.
“We’ve been able to deliver food packages and hot food plates to our patients who have to be quarantined. For 14 days, we deliver food and aid to patients who are bed bound,” said Harjee.
CCHC is located at 3700 Market St., Suite E, and is accessible to Clarkston’s refugee and immigrant communities, according to Harjee.
According to Friends of Refugees, more than 60,000 refugees have relocated to Clarkston since the early 1990s.
Harjee said more than 60 languages are spoken in Clarkston, and CCHC officials speak 30 languages and have access to translators through Emory University who cover the remaining languages.
“We are delivering care to people who are 200 percent below federal poverty, so these patients can continue to get [healthcare],” said Harjee. “The fact we are linguistically, ethnically and culturally sensitive makes us a favored clinic for immigrants and refugees. I speak six languages, but I’m still about 54 short.”
CCHC and Harjee receive awards and recognition for their work in the immigrant and refugee communities, but Harjee said about 30 percent of CCHC’s patients were born and raised in the United States.
Harjee said CCHC meets patients’ needs for female providers, multilingual providers and other requests. Expansion plans include a new location at 4038 Rockbridge Road in Stone Mountain.
“We’ve purchased [two and a half acres] right on the border of Clarkston near Rockbridge Road,” said Harjee. “We’re now on a campaign for $1.6 million … to fund this 8,000-square-foot facility. We’re already serving 5,500 patients. We really need our politicians to bring us some funding.”
Donations play a vital role in CCHC’s operations, according to Harjee.
“This is not an easy task. Healthcare is different. It’s a very special skill. For people to step up to the plate and help us is very important. We need physicians and nurse practitioners,” said Harjee. “The grants, private donors, foundations, the Ted Turners and the Tyler Perrys are very important to us.”
CCHC officials said they hope to hold a groundbreaking at their new location in December. “We really need this new building up and going,” said Harjee.
Harjee is one of 10 women to receive the Women of Worth award for 2020, which program officials said, “honors the intrinsic worth of everyday women igniting positive change in their communities and championing self-worth in others.”
The public may support one of the 10 nominees by voting at WomenOfWorth.com. The National Honoree will be announced Dec. 1 and receive an extra $25,000.
Read the original story on TheChampionNewspaper.com.
