Victoria Reggie Kennedy speaks at the dedication of the Lynn Community Health Center’s new Union Street atrium named for her late husband, U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, on Monday. (Courtesy Photo)

 

LYNN - Victoria Reggie Kennedy dedicated the Lynn Community Health Center’s new atrium Monday by recalling her late husband’s “ … promise of health care in America as a right and not a privilege.”

The center’s board of directors named the atrium after U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and — with assistance from longtime Kennedy family friend and former Lynn Mayor Thomas P. Costin Jr. — invited Kennedy’s widow to officially open the atrium connecting the center’s new addition with its 269 Union St. building.

Following Kennedy’s death on Aug. 25, 2009, Costin said Victoria Kennedy took dedication requests in Kennedy’s memory under consideration and eventually accepted the center’s invitation to Monday’s dedication.

“She was delighted to come up,” he said.

The atrium is a long, sloping hallway running from the center’s Blake Street entrance to its Union Street entrance. Its roof is open to sunlight and quotes from Sen. Kennedy cover part of one wall beneath Kennedy’s name.

Kennedy, in remarks sent by aide Lisa McBirney to the Daily Item on Monday, called her late husband “ … a great supporter of Community Health Care Center and the ability for all Americans to get quality affordable health care.”

“Community Health Care Centers like Lynn are on the front line of care and offering more services, due to their expansion, is another great step forward,” stated Kennedy.

The center spent $11.8 million in tax dollar funding and donated money over the past year to construct a new building featuring the atrium and adjoining urgent care and central registration departments. The registration and urgent care offices opened in early September.

Construction on other departments in the addition, including radiology, mammography and an expanded dental office, continue through the fall. Center Executive Director Lori Abrams Berry said these departments will open next January. The newly opened space in the addition and departments slated to open next year add 39,000 square feet to the 30,000 square feet in the 269 Union St. center.

A third floor in the addition provides future expansion space, Berry said.

She said the center’s expansion will allow its doctors and other employees to serve 7,000 patients in addition to the 34,700 the center treated in 2010.

“It seems patients and other visitors are pleased with the space. The atrium really opens it up,” Berry said.

Center Board of Directors President John Feehan said the new and expanded medical departments in the addition will help the Center serve a “large population with a broader array of services.”

He said the addition is organized to provide “patient-centered” care involving doctors, nurses and other medical workers focusing on a variety of ways to help patients live with chronic ailments including diabetes and asthma.

Feehan said Edward Kennedy took a specific interest in the center’s growth throughout his legislative career.

“Ted Kennedy was instrumental in developing community health centers and involved indirectly and directly in the Lynn Community Health Center,” he said.

Costin said Kennedy pushed more than 40 years to bring health care to inner cities by sponsoring legislation providing federal support for community health centers.

“This has been a godsend for a city like Lynn. People can get in from their neighborhoods and see someone who speaks their language,” he said.

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