In addition to Sunday afternoons from 1 to 4 p.m., Avicenna patients can now be seen on every second and fourth Thursday of the month from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Photo Credit: morgueFile.
From the Editors
Avicenna Community Health Center has been offering uninsured residents of Champaign County free health services for the last five years.
Now Avicenna is expanding its hours to accommodate even more patients. In addition to Sunday afternoons from 1 to 4 p.m., patients can now be seen on every second and fourth Thursday of the month from 6 to 8:30 p.m.
Diamond Powell, of the University of Illinois Undergraduate Department of Applied Health Sciences- Community Health, says expanding the hours is part of a year-long trial to see if there is a need in the community.
Since 2011, Avicenna has seen about 1400 patients, with 964 being new patients.
“We average about 9-15 patients in a day,” Powell said.
Patients qualify for services by being 18 years or older and being uninsured.
Powell says the center “can serve as someone’s primary care provider (seeing patients on a regular basis for check ups etc.) and also as a sick care provider (seeing patients when there’s a health problem).”
Avicenna is a not-for-profit entity operating since 2009. Originally, a project of the local Muslim community, it has evolved into an interfaith effort working as academia community partnership in providing high quality preventive and curative healthcare.
Currently, Avicenna offers the following primary care services: chronic disease management (i.e., hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol), physical exams and laboratory work, nutritional counseling, and assistance applying for free or reduced cost medications.
The target population of Avicenna Community Health Center is the uninsured residents of Champaign County. All health services are available free of cost for uninsured patients eighteen years and older.
Most recently, Avicenna Community Health Center entered into a new and innovative partnership with Promise Healthcare. The partnership involves sharing office and clinical facilities and expanded services allowing both organizations to better serve the local community. However, Avicenna remains a legally constituted Illinois not-for-profit organization that is separate from Promise Healthcare and its programs; Avicenna patients are not patients of Promise Health Care.
Avicenna welcomes visitors as well as volunteers to donate their time and services with the clinic in a variety of capacities. The clinic welcomes healthcare providers such as physicians, nurse practitioners, and foreign medical graduates. In addition, students and community volunteers from a variety of backgrounds are needed including medicine, nursing, public health, engineering, business, and law among others. The clinic also has need for translators.
Appointments can be made by calling 217-418-5888 on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5:30 – 9:30pm. Walk-ins are accepted, but appointments are encouraged. For more information visit the Avicenna Website, call 217-620-5401, or contact Samuel Logan, Clinic Manager, at. Avicenna is located at 819 Bloomington Road in Champaign.