Springfield health center celebrates 30 years serving city’s diverse community
SPRINGFIELD — What started as a small storefront in the city's South End with a few dozen employees has grown to multiple sites that employ more than 300 people.
Caring Health Center in Springfield, which works to provide culturally competent, accessible health care, turns 30 this year.
Recent changes to funding at the federal level have brought a certain set of challenges to the federally-funded community health center, but the center does its best to evolve with its patients needs, said Tania M. Barber, president and CEO of the center. She has worked there nearly as long as it has been open.
"Our purpose is to reduce health disparities and comorbidities," Barber said.
The center, which receives financial support from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, is bracing for possible federal funding cuts, she said.
"We're not sure what that's going to look like yet," she said. About 70% of the center's patients is enrolled in Medicaid.
Coming Medicaid reductions are expected to cost Massachusetts' health care system $1.75 billion, affecting 250,000 people statewide , according to the Healey administration. Cuts to the health insurance program are slated to begin next year.
Spirit Ford-Sutton is the front operations patent coordinator and is the first person patients will see as they enter the Caring Health Center building on Main Street in Springfield. August 5, 2025. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
Lydia Sanchez, senior outreach and enrollment navigator, provides support to patients who have questions about health insurance.
"While changes are going to happen, I stay positive because it's our priority to provide the best possible care," Sanchez said. "Later on, we will be ready to deal with whatever comes our way."
Sanchez has been working for the center for 27 years. While she hasn't always worked in her current role, Sanchez explained her expertise is working with community members.
"Everybody contributes to patient care and there is support from the team to be sensitive towards people's cultures," she said. "We're like a family."
Over the last three decades, the center has treated more than 21,000 patients. The number of visits to the center is five times that amount, said Barber.
It also has expanded to several facilities in Springfield that provide services including medical, dental and behavioral care in close to 80 languages.
Staying because of the interpreters
Lien Nguyen, interpreting supervisor for the center, has been working with the Vietnamese population in Springfield since 1995. She came to the job with experience from a refugee resettlement organization in the city where she was a case manager.
"When I started, I was a case coordinator for the Vietnamese community and we had less than 30 Vietnamese patients," she said. That number has grown to at least 1,000 patients, she said.
As the immigrant population in Springfield has grown, Nguyen said she began interpreting, translating and doing outreach in the community to facilitate health care access.
"Most people stay (being patients) here because of the interpreters," she said. "We make sure everything is running smoothly."
Speaking a person's native language also helps the center educate them about the services offered there. For example, patients can learn about behavioral health services, which is a taboo topic in some cultures.
"People hesitate to accept services, but we educate them the best we can," Nguyen said. "For refugees who have been through so much in their home country, we know it will take time for them to accept that kind of care."
In addition to providing translation services during health care visits, Nguyen said her staff also assists patients to apply for citizenship or a green card and help them access to public benefits like social security and food assistance.
For patients of the center, the interpreters predominantly translate into Arabic, Russian, Spanish, Swahili (various dialects of which are spoken across East Africa) and Vietnamese, Nguyen said. But in recent years, more and more patients have come to the center speaking other languages, such as Pashto (spoken in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan) and Haitian Creole.
Expanding the center
In 2023, the center opened its Tania M. Barber Learning Institute, named after the center's president, to teach people interested pursuing careers as medical assistants, dental assistants and phlebotomists.
"We provide the training to people who have an aspiration for health care," Barber said. A medical background is not required, she said.
Nelya Balan, a dental hygienist, and dental student Ava Shirzaeeh, ready the exam room for their first patient in the morning at Caring Health Center in Springfield. August 5, 2025. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
The educational programs run less than a year long and accept about 20 people who learn the skills and then shadow a provider.
The center has also designed health care programs that aim to meet patients where they are at. For example, patients without access to transportation can request a Caring Health Center employee to pick up their prescription medications and drop it off at home.
The center also offers a vehicle that "brings care right into the community," Barber said.
Recently, the center lost about eight providers due to staff retiring or relocating, but is actively recruiting, she said.
Caring Health Center, Springfield. August 4, 2025. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
While there are new people onboarding and the center has expanded its capacity, Barber said that the loss of employees puts "a major strain on the existing staff and deepens the crisis of a lack of primary care providers."
There are 2,600 people on the waitlist for primary care at the center, and that number is climbing, she said.
"Baby boomers are retiring and staffing shortages are contributing to the rising number of people on the waitlist," she said.
Despite facing the challenge of potential federal cuts and loss of employees, the center hopes for more progression in the next three decades and beyond.
"We are the largest community health center in Western Massachusetts," she said. "Our trajectory is growth oriented."
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