GREENSBORO, N.C. — The owner of a Greensboro community health center came after a loss of millions of dollars in state grant money.
The Evans-Blount Community Health Center closed earlier this year. It served a part of the city that is considered a medical desert for more than 10 years.
Dr. Shamsher Ahluwalia, a psychiatrist, bought the health center in 2019. At the time, it offered both primary care and mental health services.
He said a state grant through Sandhills Center gave his clinic one million dollars a year to offset the costs of caring for primary care patients insured by Medicaid.
Then, Ahluwalia said the funding was cut in half last year and ended completely this summer. WFMY News 2 reached out to NCDHHS and Sandhills Center and is waiting for a response as to why that funding stopped.
Donna Odem was a nurse practitioner at Evans-Blount for three years and still practices at Triad Medical Group's other psychiatry clinics.
She said primary care services at Evans-Blount were significantly cut back before it closed in the spring.
"It was (open) one day a week which is not appropriate for the patients' needs or for the provider as well," Odem said. "It was not financially feasible for the owner of the practice to have more days of primary care."
Ahluwalia and Odem said they notified their patients before primary care ended.
Odem is encouraging her patients to go to Inspirational Community Health Center in Greensboro, where she plans to practice soon.
"The new practice I’m going to is taking new patients. They accept any type of insurance, there are no holds barred," Odem said. "If there’s no insurance the owner of the practice will work with them."
Triad Medical Group still provides psychiatric care at a smaller office next door to Evans-Blount at 2520-E Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. in Greensboro. It's open on Tuesdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Triad Medical Group also has an office in Burlington.
The Greensboro location will move again soon. Ahluwalia said a new psychiatric care location will open on Fairview Street on October 1.