Mass General Brigham Community Care Vans offer services to patients in their own neighborhoods

BOSTON — Every Thursday, the Mass General Brigham Community Care Van pulls into the Egleston Square YMCA lot in Roxbury, right next to a food truck.

Addiction recovery coach Linda Gousby maximizes the opportunity to hand out fliers about the van’s services to the line of people waiting for free groceries.

“People who may be walking by who do not go to clinics and hospitals can come and get information from us. So it’s like that easy access,” Gousby said.

She tells Boston 25 that building trust and getting people to stop by is the first step.

“We just wanted to make sure that our community had the resources that they needed and to make sure that they feel supported and felt welcome to come into the Y,” said Ta Batts, Executive Director of the Roxbury Y.

“We see more and more people every week as, as the word spreads about what we’re doing here,” Batts said.

What the vans do, is offer whole body care, from blood pressure and monitoring for diabetes to treatment for opioid and other types of substance abuse disorders.

“This is an important effort to be able to find folks in the community who feel like they are ready to enter treatment or want to learn a little bit more about harm reduction and keeping themselves safe while they’re using substances before they’re coming into the hospital,” said Dr. Lauren Malishchak, BWH Primary Care and addiction medicine physician.

The doctor and nurse practitioner staffed at the van will see patients, even if they don’t have insurance. They say the goal is to get them on a path to better overall health.

“It’s very important because there’s so many people come in and they leave. So we want to have that longevity here, Gousby said.

Mass General Brigham operates 3 community care vans that visit 7 communities, including Chelsea, Revere, Everett, Salem, Lynn, and Peabody, in addition to several Boston neighborhoods.

The Roxbury location just started seeing patients in the spring and they tell us they’ve seen steady growth in the number of visitors each week. For more information, visit Mass General Brigham Community Care Vans.

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