Joanne Borduas, CEO of Community Health & Wellness Center, at the newly furnished regional healthcare center in North Canaan. A ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for Friday, May 10, followed by an open house on Saturday, May 11, after which patients can call or stop by the center to schedule appointments beginning in early June.
NORTH CANAAN — When the state-of-the-art, federally qualified health center (FQHC) welcomes patients in early June, it will usher in a new era for healthcare in the state’s rural Northwest Corner, one that health advocates are hailing as critically needed and long overdue.
State Rep. Maria Horn (D-64) put it this way: “The new regional healthcare center for the Northwest Corner will act as a catalyst on our rural healthcare crisis, becoming one of the most necessary and exciting projects in the history of our region.”
The multi-level North Canaan facility on East Main Street marks the realization of a decades-long effort by Community Health & Wellness Center (CHWC), aided by a coalition of community partners, to address what CEO Joanne Borduas described as a “healthcare desert” in the Northwest Corner.
Residents living in healthcare deserts, also referred to as medical deserts, may face inadequate access to primary, emergency, mental health, and dental care as well as a lack of public transportation and public health services, Borduas noted.
“Rural towns are often isolated” and have a disproportionately higher population of older adults over 65, who are more likely to require care for chronic conditions, she said.
“Access to services is important for overall disease prevention, life expectancy, quality of life and overall population health.”
A report by the American Medical Association revealed that while overall mortality for Americans has been decreasing, mortality rates for rural residents between 25 and 64 years old have risen by about 12 percent.
A lone primary care doctor
“Access to health care has been a challenge for decades,” said Borduas, a problem that is exacerbated by a critical physician shortage.
North Canaan, she noted, has only one practicing primary care physician, and there are no free-standing urgent care centers in rural Northwest Corner, forcing some patients to travel a distance to receive emergency care.
“Think about it. Sharon Hospital is the only Connecticut hospital in the Northwest Corner and there is only one primary care provider [in North Canaan]. The ability to access a hospital for emergencies and to have a local primary care provider are real concerns for rural communities.”
To make matters worse, attracting and retaining physicians in rural communities has been a major challenge for decades, and this phenomenon is hardly contained to Northwest Connecticut.
A 2023 survey of physicians by the Association of American Medical Collages found that 68 percent of newly graduated doctors preferred to work in hospitals than jobs in family practices which are more common in rural areas. In addition, only 4 percent had a desire to work in a community of 25,000 residents or fewer.
Additionally, according to the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, 104 rural hospitals have closed since 2005 and across the country, 600 more are at risk of closure.
‘Pockets of affluence’ hide the need
The launch of the new regional health center marks a culmination of decades of effort among community partners.
The request to build an FQHC to serve the Northwest Corner began decades ago when the need for mental health services rose.
In 2017, Borduas joined forces with Nancy Heaton, President and CEO of the Sharon-based Foundation for Community Health (FCH). They applied for Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grants to build a new access point but didn’t meet the benchmark for low-income needs.
“There are a lot of pockets of affluence here that obscure the need…the numbers got skewed,” recalled Borduas. “Two years later, the Foundation for Community Health said, ‘We will help you with what you need,’ so we started looking at property.”
FCH played a pivotal role, contributing $1.3 million for the property purchase and project needs, along with an additional $650,000 for start-up costs, adding to a $3 million bond secured with the help of Horn from the state of Connecticut toward construction.
FCH also awarded CHWC a multi-year, $75,000 grant aligning with their mission to invest in health, well-being and equity of the community.
Additional funding partners include Sharon Hospital/Nuvance Health which pledged a multi-year, $650,000 gift to include $300,000 in funding and an additional $350,000 of in-kind services.
Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation contributed $155,000 including $40,000 from its fund for the Northwest Corner to support physician recruitment and strategic planning for a new fundraising and development program which CHWC officials said will be “critical to expanding and sustaining the health center.”
“Now here we are making the vision, and the ask, a reality,” noted Borduas.
FCH’s Heaton noted that the new regional health center could not have come at a better time.
“Yes, I have been thinking about, and working on bringing the health center into the Northwest Corner, and North Canaan specifically, for nearly 20 years, but with the current primary care and other healthcare provider shortages, it is needed now more than ever.”
“For that reason,” she said, “I am even more excited about looking forward and seeing the positive impact the center will have on increasing access to a full range of healthcare and prevention services for our rural communities.”
Working with Medicaid
In March, Borduas, on behalf of CHWC, gave testimony before the Connecticut General Assembly’s Human Services Committee in opposition to Section 5 of House Bill 5373: An Act Concerning Various Revisions to Human Services Statutes, which makes it harder for health centers and other providers to obtain reasonable rates for the state’s HUSKY Medicaid program.
Borduas noted that approximately 59 percent of CHWC’s patients are on HUSKY.
Since the pandemic, said Borduas, the face of those who need Medicaid has changed significantly. They are friends and neighbors, seniors and young adults, co-workers and young families.
“You could be standing by anyone in the grocery store who just lost their job and the only way to make it work is to get on Medicaid, there is no shame in that.”
Looking to the future
The original vision for the North Canaan facility had included plans for onsite laboratories, a pharmacy and dental services, but wetlands restrictions caused CHWC to “pivot our plans” and downsize the facility, said its CEO.
“We will focus on mental health and primary care to start with. Dental services will go to our Winsted location, lab services and imaging will go to Sharon Hospital, and Walgreens will handle pharmacy. We do whatever we can do to collaborate and build community relations that benefit our patients,” said Borduas.
Although currently no urgent care centers exist in the Northwest Corner, they can be beneficial in rural communities as another point of access, because they can fill a need for urgent services when primary care offices are not open. She cautioned that urgent care centers “should not be a replacement for establishing care in a primary care office, where continuity is better handled.”
A needs assessment in about six months will “determine the utilization of our services. People keep asking me about dental and urgent care, they are the next things on the list of priorities to address. We can’t do everything at once,” she explained.
But for now, she said, the state-of-the-art regional health center, which is being unveiled this weekend with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Friday (May 10) and an open house on Saturday (May 11), “is answering the call to a rural crisis.”
The vision is to build on what the community needs, said CHWC’s CEO. “Everyone has a right to health care. It should not be a privilege. If you keep people well, that will keep your communities healthy.”
In 2002, CHWC was established on Migeon Avenue in Torrington at a former community grocery store, and in 2009 it became a federally qualified health center (FQHC), which makes services available to all regardless of ability to pay, and accepts regular commercial insurance, the uninsured, sliding scales and payment plans.
In 2014, the CHWC launched a 24,000-square-foot renovation to expand services, add 21 exam rooms, 10 dental operatories and behavioral health service.
Today, CHWC has a network of centers in Torrington, Winsted, and as of this week, a new regional health center for the Northwest Corner based in North Canaan, which will serve approximately 17,000 residents in North Canaan and surrounding towns of Cornwall, Falls Village, Norfolk, Kent, Lakeville, Salisbury and Sharon.
In addition, CHWC has nine other satellite locations in Torrington schools, a food bank partner and on April 29 launched its school-based health centers in three of the Region One schools.
CHWC, which is one of 17 FQHC’s in Connecticut, serves 24 towns with a combined population of 143,648, with low income comprising 26,365, or 17%, and is the only comprehensive FQHC in the Northwest Corner.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, or to schedule an appointment for either primary care or mental health services starting in early June, call (860) 362-5101.
Photo by Riley Klein
NORTH CANAAN — The Connecticut Attorney General’s investigation into complaints against Town Clerk Jean Jacquier has found evidence of misconduct and neglect of duty.
A letter released Oct. 9 from Deputy Associate Attorney General Maura B. Murphy, chief of the special litigation section, states, “We thoroughly investigated the allegations and found evidence of misconduct and neglect of duty in three areas: (1) improper security of the vault outside of the Town Clerk’s hours of operation; (2) improper posting of campaign materials in Town Hall; and (3) untimely stamping of documents received by the Town Clerk’s office.”
No further action was taken by the AG’s office. The letter “strongly recommend” Jacquier implement changes to her practices and review standards governing vault security, political activity by municipal officials, and stamping or endorsing documents.
The letter to Jacquier ends, “We trust you will take these recommendations seriously and, to the extent you have not already done so, will implement changes immediately. This Office reserves the right to act under General Statutes §7-22 if presented with evidence of future violations.” (Statute §7-22 outlines the AG’s authority to investigate and charge a town clerk.)
Jacquier has worked in Town Hall since 1993 and was first elected Town Clerk in 2017. She is currently serving in her fourth term.
Jacquier’s attorney Jeffrey J. Mirman called the findings “a victory for Jean.” He noted the AG found no evidence of slander, the fourth charge leveled against Jacquier, and said there was “virtually no evidence” for the three areas in which misconduct was found.
“The long and the short of it is that this letter from the Attorney General completely exonerates her,” Mirman said, noting that evidence was not sufficient to justify removal of Jacquier from office.
First Selectman Brian Ohler, who initially submitted the complaints to the AG’s office in January 2024, commented on the findings in a press release.
Ohler stated, “I want to thank the AG’s Office for the time and professionalism they put into this matter and for confirming the need for immediate changes and improvements in the Town Clerk’s office.”
He went on to announce “an independent advisory commission will soon be created to create a formal Ethics Commission for North Canaan. Accountability and adherence to the highest standards of public trust and professionalism in public service is never an option. It is our obligation as public servants.”
Jacquier has filed suit against the Town of North Canaan for legal fees accrued during the investigation in the amount of $15,000. The case is pending before Torrington Superior Court with a status conference scheduled for Dec. 11.
The Great Room at Norfolk Library filled to capacity for the Haystack Festival.
Just after noon on Sunday, Oct. 6, attendees of Norfolk Foundation’s Haystack Festival spilled out of the red Shingle Style Norfolk Library into brilliant October sunshine, emerging from the final book talk of the weekend (excepting an event for young readers later in the day). The talk, which was a conversation between horse experts journalist Sarah Maslin Nir and author David Chaffetz, was rife with equine puns and startling facts. The tongue-in-cheek use of the word “cavalier” brought laughs from the engaged audience, while Nir disclosed that horses eat for a full 16 hours a day.
The talk brought levity and humor to the festival’s conclusion, while also diving into the serious history of the relationship between society and horses. Chaffetz explained horses were fundamental in the formation of large empires: “We don’t see empires until horses became fundamental to the political state.” Nir elaborated that the “wild” horses in North America are not native, but feral horses descended from animals brought by Spanish imperialists. “No tea grows in England,” she explained, “it is the result of empire – and so are horses.”
Other talks included a conversation about the history of ballet between writers and dance critics Marina Harss and Mindy Aloff, a discussion between bestselling authors Michael Korda and Simon Winchester on wisdom and memory, and a heady chat about the intersection between academic ideas and the public sphere between public academics William Egginton and Samuel Moyn.
Festival Director Michael Selleck said that while he doesn’t curate for theme when selecting the speakers, a certain atmosphere tends to manifest. While last year the tone skewed political, he said, “this year things were more philosophical.”
Exemplifying the philosophical streak in the festival was a conversation between naturalist and writer Noah Charney and Great Mountain Forest executive director Mike Zarfos. Charney advocated for a philosophy of nature that “shouldn’t take species as good or bad.” He encouraged the audience to get out into their own yards and “learn the plants and critters” while remaining open to imaginative and novel understandings of ecology. He urged the crowd to follow a naturalist principle of “being out there, getting muddy and wet, and eating plants.”
Selleck was very pleased with the turnout this year, with few seats left empty and an audience that he said was “very engaged”. And why throw a festival like this one in Norfolk? “Norfolk is a cultural center,” he said, and he wants to “bring a literary element back to the cultural heart of Norfolk.”
Brooklyn and New York based writer Gillian Bagley gave the Brendan Gill Lecture on Friday night. The lecture is an annual talk given in memorial of Brendan Gill, a celebrated New Yorker writer who lived in Bronxville, N.Y. and Norfolk.
Appropriately, it was a family affair. Bagley is Gill’s granddaughter, and she was introduced by her cousin Anne Gill, another granddaughter of the writer. As she took the podium, Bagley fondly recalled spending summers with her grandfather in Norfork as a child – during one such stay, the two co-authored a book called “The Monster of Haystack Mountain.”
Beyond recalling memories, Bagley also presented and read from her new novel Negative Space, and reflected on how Gill influenced her own writing. She read a passage in which Gill said he sought to instill within his paragraphs “a weight and a shape no greater than a cloud of blue butterflies.” She said she strives to imbue her own fiction with this sense of “precise contours and the weight of something real,” informing her practice of “constant whittling” that defines the pared-down style of her prose.
This writing process doesn’t produce long novels, and she offered several jokes about her predilection for brevity that drew hearty laughter from the crowd. Several readers had told her they had finished the book in one sitting, she said, adding that, “I suspect it wasn’t that they couldn’t put it down, but that they didn’t have to.”
"The Red Sand Project" is intended to draw attention to often overlooked domestic violence issues in the Northwest Corner.
To mark the start of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Project SAGE held its annual community vigil on Tuesday, Oct. 1, at Community Field in Lakeville. Project SAGE is a community-focused organization dedicated to supporting, advocating, guiding and educating victims of relationship violence through a range of services and outreach programs.
A large group of people gathered quietly in the center of the field where they were handed packets of red sand. Red Sand Project, created by artist and activist Molly Gochman, is a participatory artwork that uses sidewalk interventions and earthwork installations to encourage people to reflect, connect, and take action against the vulnerabilities that contribute to human trafficking, modern slavery, and exploitation.
“We pour sand into sidewalk cracks to draw attention to issues we often overlook, like intimate partner violence, exploitation, and sexual assault in our own communities,” explained Kristen Pratt, operations manager at the Red Sand Project. “So, as you’re pouring the sand into the cracks, think about what vulnerabilities might be present all around you in your own community. How can we open our eyes and deepen our awareness a bit more? How can we remember the ones we are honoring tonight as we go forward?” Pratt instructed.
After filling the sidewalk cracks around the park with sand, the group reconvened to hear opening remarks from Project SAGE’s executive director, Kristen van Ginhoven. “Thank you for taking time out of your day to join us in honoring those who lost their lives to domestic violence in Connecticut in 2023,” said van Ginhoven. She went on to explain that Project SAGE is part of a larger coalition of eighteen sister agencies across Connecticut (known as Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence or CCADV) all of whom are dedicated to creating social change and ending interpersonal relationship violence for all.
Virginia Gold, Project SAGE’s director of client services also spoke. “We are gathered tonight to remember 26 lives that ended this year in Connecticut. Each individual was the victim of someone who decided to use the power of brute force to silence their voice forever,” said Gold. She went on to offer a hopeful reflection of resilience.
The group then lit battery operated candles and walked along Main Street, “as a visible, collective symbol,” said Gold. “The lights we carry honor both the lives that have been lost as well as all of us who still work and hope for change,” she added. Slowly and contemplatively, the group processed to Project SAGE’s office on Porter Street where a poem was shared in English and Spanish before the names of the 26 victims of Domestic Violence were read aloud. After each name was read aloud, names of victims aged 2 to 83, the group was instructed to respond in unison: “We remember their name.”
The list of names was followed by a moment of silence after which, Pastor John Nelson, who serves on the Board of Directors of Project SAGE, offered closing remarks. “In the silence we hold, we remember the pain and loss. We remember those who have borne the injury of violence in their bodies and in their spirits. But we remember also our commitment that no one will be left alone. We remember our determination to demand an end to violence. We remember our resolve that violence will not define us.” Inviting the group gathered to stay for refreshments and reflections, Pastor Nelson offered, “We can move forward from silence to community, to the resolute practice of compassion, even to the celebration that we will share, so that tomorrow we may return invigorated to continue the good struggle for justice, for healing, and for hope.”
