(upbeat music) - Hi everyone.

Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with Suzy Dyer who is Executive Director of the Parker Family Health Center.

Suzy, thank you for joining us.

- Thank you for having me.

- Suzy, let me ask you, we were just talking before we got on the air.

I've interviewed several leaders from the Parker Family Health Center over the years.

It started in 2000?

- Yes.

We're now celebrating our 23rd anniversary.

- Congratulations.

Located in?

- Red Bank, New Jersey.

- Committed to?

- Providing free healthcare to the uninsured of Monmouth County.

- So let's put this in perspective.

The clinic went from 9,000 visitors a year to 15,000 visitors due to the COVID pandemic.

The most significant impact for Parker Family Health Center committed to helping those and providing quality accessible healthcare for those who have a very difficult time affording it and having insurance.

COVID's greatest impact on the work of the organization has been?

- Keeping people out of the emergency room.

We all know that emergency room visits can be expensive.

They cost the healthcare system and stress the healthcare system a large amount.

Through our research, we found that an emergency room visit costs approximately $3,000 per visit.

So this is a cost savings by keeping folks out of the emergency room and also the stress on emergency room resources, personnel, as well as facilities.

And so we were able to keep folks out of the emergency room and make Parker Family Health Center their medical home rather than using emergency departments as a medical home.

- Suzy, were putting up the website for the Parker Family Health Center.

Be more specific in terms of the services that are provided.

They're extensive, are they not?

- Yes, they are.

So we start seeing folks from the ages three and up.

We provide care for the whole person.

We are very blessed to not only have primary care providers and pediatricians on site.

We are blessed to have at least 16 specialists who come here and volunteer their time by giving their expertise and seeing our patients for free.

And we have specialists in rheumatology, cardiology, orthopedics.

We already said pediatrics, ophthalmology, optometry, neurology.

So the list is extensive nephrology.

The list goes on and on.

- So these volunteers, currently 130 volunteers, 82 of them are medical professionals.

Some have retired, some are in active practice.

I know that everyone has a different reason for volunteering but there's got to be a powerful, compelling reason for most of them that has to do with giving back.

Talk about that, please.

- Yes, it is about giving back and also wanting to give of their time.

I think a lot of the volunteers realize that they have been fortunate in their lives and this is their way of giving back and lending a helping hand to those who have been less fortunate.

I also think that they've realized the need.

And we did see one of the impacts of COVID that we did see, Steve, was a big uptick in our volunteers.

We went from around 60 medical professionals to as you said earlier, 82.

And that is quite an uptick in that number.

And people are really willing to give of their time.

And I think COVID also showed that people wanted to have more meaning in their lives.

And this is Parker Family Health Center affords that to our volunteers.

- You're a nonprofit, are you not?

- We are.

- We are a nonprofit.

We spend a lot of our time raising corporate and foundation dollars to, that allows us to do what we do.

Your funding comes from where?

- Our funding comes from wonderful foundations like The Horizon, also from the county, but also from individual donors.

- You mean, Monmouth County?

- Monmouth County, yes.

And also from individual donors.

We are really fortunate.

We could not do the work that we do, Steve, without philanthropic support.

We are not a federally-qualified health center.

- You're not, so you do not get federal money.

- No.

And we are not a line item in the federal budget.

We do not get any guaranteed source of funding.

- How about the state budget?

- We have been very fortunate in the past two years to be in the state budget, which is wonderful.

But again, we can't count on that.

It's not a guaranteed source of funding.

- Without getting too inside, is Senator Vin Gopal, the senator that represents Red Bank?

- He is.

And he is a wonderful partner and supporter of Parker.

- And by the way, go back on our website, steveadubato.org.

Be up on the screen.

Look at the interview that we did with Senator Vin Gopal.

Why?

Because he talks extensively about behavioral mental health issues.

He talks very candidly in a very powerful way about his own personal experience dealing with mental health.

And he does an important public service to destigmify, if you will.

The whole issue of mental health to a public officials like him I'm talking about.

Before I let you go, the expansion that's going on at the the Parker Family Health Center.

Please talk about it.

- We are thrilled to be fortunate enough, again, through the philanthropic support of our supporters to be able to expand and also renovate our current facility.

And that will enable us to provide classrooms for preventive care and for education, for the community at large as well as for our patients as well as mental health space and spaces to educate our patients about nutrition and about their cardiac care as well as diabetic care.

So we are really fortunate to be able to be in this position so that we can further expand our services and also serve the community.

- And by the way, before we... One more time, put up the website if you want to find a way to be helpful.

If you need help, please reach out.

By the way, the word is destigmatize.

I don't know why I couldn't think of that before.

We're talking about Senator Gopal.

Real quick, the most significant impact that Parker has had on the community is because I keep asking myself what would happen if you weren't there?

The biggest impact on the overall health of the community.

- I think it would be twofold.

One, we really are a trusted resource and a trusted healthcare provider in the community.

I think that would be a loss of a trusted resource for our wonderful community partners.

But I also think that it would be the loss of a medical home for so many.

And I think it would really be a financial as well as resource burden on our medical system in Monmouth County.

- Before I let you go, biggest reason you do this is?

- Giving back.

It's a wonderful feeling to work with such dedicated people and to like everyone that you're working with.

And I feel very, very fortunate.

It's a privilege to be able to do what I do.

- We appreciate what you do, you and your colleagues every day.

Thank you, Suzy.

- Thank you so much, Steve and thank you for highlighting Parker.

It means so much.

- It's our job, it's important.

And we're all needing to be part of the effort to help those Thank you, Suzy.

I appreciate it.

Stay with us, be right back.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

New Jersey Institute of Technology.

PSC.

The Fidelco Group.

Prudential Financial.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

And by The Adler Aphasia Center.

Promotional support provided by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

Part of the USA Today Network.

And by Insider NJ.

(hands clapping) (drums banging) (fingers snapping)