Wilson Mediates
Dispute between Jessie Trice & FIU Over Clinic in Liberty City
Story by José Pérez
A public health clinic currently under construction in
Liberty City is at the heart of a struggle between one of South Florida’s oldest
and most recognized community care clinics and Miami-Dade County’s public
university. Both Jessie Trice Community
Health Center and Florida International University say that they each were
promised use of the Liberty City Health Center and, less than a year before its
scheduled opening in Spring of 2014, Congressperson Federica Wilson (D-FL) held
a meeting in her Miami Gardens office this week to resolve the matter.
The impetus on the part of Wilson to facilitate the
meeting, which included high-ranking representatives from Jessie Trice, FIU,
the Florida Department of Health, the Health Foundation of South Florida, and
the Model City CAC, was simple and urgent.
“We need to move forward with building the Liberty City Health Clinic,” said
Wilson, to help the underserved and boost the economy.
At issue is who will control use of the Liberty City
Health Center when it opens next year.
FIU said that it was told that it would be able to use
the facility as part of teaching program it developed for its students. Jessie Trice says that they were promised the
continued use of a site they’ve served for over forty years by a resolution
passed by the Miami-Dade County Board of Commissioners two years ago.
Wilson, who originally worked with local officials on the
project when she was a State Senator, said that the idea all along had been
that the Liberty City Health Clinic would be run by Jessie Trice. “It’s my
understanding that Jessie Trice will head the clinic.”
Dr. Deborah George, Chief Medical Officer for Jessie
Trice, said “I can’t imagine any reason why Jessie Trice would not be the
clinical provider for Liberty City.”
Jessie Trice has a long history of service at the site in
question. From 1972 until the
mid-2000’s, Jessie Trice operated out of the old Scott Center which sat
adjacent to the present site for the Liberty City Health Center.
Lillian Rivera, administrator for the Florida Department
of Health in Miami-Dade County, said the Health Department obtained the land
from Miami-Dade County via County Commissioner Jean Monestime. Rivera, who is in charge of supervising public
health programs in Miami-Dade, said that the 10,000 square foot facility is
already being built on county-owned lots just south of the Northside Metrorail
Station in North Liberty City. According
to Rivera, there are two more parcels available that will be used for expansion
of the site as funds become available.
Stephen Sauls, Vice President, Office of Government
Relations for FIU, was beginning to describe the history of FIU’s involvement
with the project – including contacts with legislators in Tallahassee including
State Senator Anitere Flores -when Rivera interrupted him to declare that “there
was no intention to exclude Jessie Trice.”
Rivera repeatedly insisted that Jessie Trice was not supposed
to be excluded, adding that the medical education component was at the heart of
reaching out to FIU. “I thought that
bringing FIU was a good thing for the community,” said Rivera who supports the
idea of extending the classroom into the community. “The key is to test this model of training
new physicians.”
Wilson questioned Rivera’s judgment in that instance. Describing the decision to bring FIU into the
discussion for the future of the Liberty City Health Center as “not a smart
decision,” Wilson was not pleased. “I
don’t appreciate it.”
Sauls talked about the university’s intentions. “Our focus has been to provide additional
health care,” he said, via FIU’s NeighborhoodHELP program which is “a program
that is ready to be replicated.”
Wilson asked Dr. Joe Greer, Assistant Academic Dean of
Academic Affairs for FIU and the man charged with the leadership of the
NeighborhoodHELP program, if FIU was willing to work with Jessie Trice. Greer avoided giving the Congressperson a
direct answer but did say that FIU works with “over 100 community partners” as
part of its work with “household-centered care.”
“We work with anybody.”
Greer returned to the theme introduced by Sauls as to why
FIU is interested in the Liberty City Health Clinic. “To make
[NeighborhoodHELP] successful, this has to be tied into a clinic.”
Sauls indicated that success in Liberty City could bode
well for FIU in the future hence the strong desire to “show that it’s a model
that works so it can be replicated in other places.”
The question of who had preference for control of the
health clinic still hung over the meeting.
For example, Sauls stated that the “site was offered to us” but did not
specify by whom.
For Wilson, the resolution by the Miami-Dade County
Commission saying that clinic would be operated by Jessie Trice added credence
to what she said was “the original plan”: to provide the health center for
Jessie Trice.
“As far as I’m concerned, it belongs to Jessie Trice,”
said Wilson who also said that “If
FIU wants to work with Jessie Trice, fine [but] it has to be Jessie Trice
leading.”
Sauls said he had “never heard of the resolution” which prompted
Annie Neasman, CEO of Jessie Trice, and George to hold up copies of the
resolution they brought with them to the crowded meeting.
Wilson announced the formation of a task force to resolve
the issue as soon as possible. “We’ll
determine how we’ll operate the clinic and who does what,” she said. Once the task force met, an official and
perhaps conciliatory ground-breaking is to be scheduled for the site. Still, the message from the Congressperson
was very clear to all present: “We cannot and will not allow Jessie Trice to be
left out.”
The taskforce meeting will be held on Wednesday, August
21 at noon at FIU.
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