Sacramento, Calif. | Sacramento County Supervisor Phil Serna and other local elected officials along with Sacramento community health care advocates will participate in a ribbon cutting celebration Thursday, November 3, at 11 a.m. at 752B Revere Street to officially unveil a new health clinic named in honor of longtime Land Park health care advocate Steven M. Thompson who passed away in 2004 at age 62. The program will be held in the Community Center of the Alder Grove housing community across from the health clinic.
Speakers at Thursday’s ribbon cutting event include Supervisor Serna, California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton, Sacramento Mayor-Elect Darrell Steinberg, City Councilmember Steve Hansen; former Sacramento Mayor, Councilmember and State Assemblymember Phil Isenberg; Stuart Thompson, son of Steven Thompson and widow Nancy Miller; Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency Executive Director La Shelle Dozier; and Chuck Wiesen, CEO, Health For All which is the clinic’s operator.
Thompson was among California’s most influential healthcare policy analysts and lobbyists, serving as governmental affairs director for the California Medical Association for 12 years prior to his death. He served as a close aide to former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, and was chief of staff and director of the Assembly Office of Research in the 1980s and early ’90s. Thompson was known as the “smartest man in California” on the issue of health. He helped shape legislation affecting the care of developmentally disabled, mentally ill, and economically disadvantaged Californians. Following his death, the state Senate renamed a loan deferment program that Thompson helped create in 2002 for students who agree to work in areas where medical care is severely lacking. The program was named the Steven M. Thompson Physician Corps Loan Repayment Program.
“Steve advocated for a better and more humane society by expanding access to health care,” said his widow Nancy Miller. “His successes came from a combination of intelligence, intensity and passion and we’re proud that this clinic so close to his home bears his name.”
The new Steven M. Thompson Community Health Clinic, located off of Muir Way near Broadway in Supervisor Serna’s district, will serve Alder Grove (formerly New Helvetia) and Marina Vista communities. In 2015, Serna allocated $150,000 in discretionary Tobacco Litigation Settlement Funds to Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency to partially fund tenant improvements on an existing building that previously housed a health clinic but closed more than 15 years ago leaving a gap in accessible health care for disadvantaged residents living in and around the area.
Serna remembered Mr. Thompson from his childhood days.
“I knew Steve Thompson as a close friend to my family and as my coach when I played Land Park soccer as a kid. While I was eager to establish a health clinic serving my old neighborhood here in Alder Grove, I wanted to do so all along by rightfully honoring an ardent and effective healthcare advocate. Advancing public health initiatives and legislation, especially for disadvantaged communities, was Steve Thompson’s passion and it’s appropriate we recognize his contribution by naming this new clinic in his memory.”
The new clinic will offer a flexible schedule to include Saturday appointments and provide direct services to seniors, adults, infants, children and teens. Services will include primary care, health risk assessments, immunizations and injections, exams and screenings, prescriptions and pharmaceuticals, educational, intervention and incentive programs, sports physicals, lab tests, biometric screenings, preventive care, well-baby clinics and pre-natal services.
The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency is providing the site in a completely renovated housing unit for the clinic, which is also located within the Sacramento Promise Zone. With the advent of the Affordable Care Act, and changes to health care in California, SHRA has worked with the City, County and health provider community to re-establish a clinic to serve the Marina Vista and Alder Grove communities.
“We’re excited that this partnership has been able to bring a new on-site health and wellness clinic to Sacramento that will act as a lever to change the health outcomes of families in the Alder Grove and Marina Vista Communities,” said SHRA Executive Director La Shelle Dozier.
