NH Health Law Collaborative Expands to the North Country

 

NH Health Law Collaborative Expands to the North Country

New Hampshire Legal Assistance (NHLA) is expanding its innovative medical-legal collaborative project, the New Hampshire Health Law Collaborative (NHHLC), to the North Country, opening operations in Ammonoosuc Community Health Services, Coos County Family Health Services, and Indian Stream Health Center. The NHHLC combines the skills of two unlikely partners—doctors and lawyers—to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable low-income and elderly people in New Hampshire. Legal aid lawyers from NHLA work at health centers as “sub-specialists” — training medical staff both to identify — and to provide free legal assistance to resolve — a myriad of social and environmental problems and conditions that are affecting their patients’ health. The NHHLC also seeks to bring about systemic change to improve the health of large populations living in poverty. “A person’s health cannot be effectively improved by relying on medical interventions alone,” said NHLA Executive Director, John E. Tobin, Jr. “Health is affected by both biological and social factors — and doctors — who are critical sources of preventive intervention for families — are ill-equipped to address social determinants of health. Lawyers and healthcare professionals working together, however, can often prevent illness and can give sick patients a better shot at recovery because they can address the full continuum of a person’s needs, including housing, food, education, health care and a safe, stable environment.” The NHHLC, one of 71 such medical-legal partnerships nationwide, was started in Manchester in 2005 in collaboration with Child Health Services, a non-profit health care organization dedicated to improving the health and well being of children from low-income families in the greater Manchester area. Based on its effectiveness in serving the unmet needs of patients in Manchester, the NHHLC is being expanded to three community health centers in the North Country: Ammonoosuc Community Health Services, Coos County Family Health Services, and Indian Stream Health Center. The North Country Health Consortium is also partnering with the NHHLC by providing office space and videoconferencing for meetings and helping to organize accredited trainings for medical staff. NHLA recently hired Attorney Brenda Hallisey to work on-site at the three health centers to provide legal assistance to their patients and to train and prepare educational materials for health care staff on legal issues. NHLA paralegal, Gisele Lemieux, will also be spending a portion of her time working at the health centers and assisting the NHHLC attorney. NHHLC Project Director, Attorney Marta Rodriguez, will oversee the North Country expansion. This expansion has been made possible by funding received from the Endowment for Health, Jessie B. Cox Charitable Trust and New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. The NHHLC Manchester site has also been generously supported by the Greater Manchester Charitable Trust, the Norwin S. and Elizabeth N. Bean Foundation, the Medical Legal Partnership for Children and the New Hampshire Bar Foundation.

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