ELMIRA, NY (WENY) -- Chemung County legislators are hoping to bring a new health care center to the county, but the plan has stalled.

Last year, the legislature voted to approve a million dollars to help bring a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) to the Elmira area. An FQHC provides health care services to people in under-served areas, regardless of insurance or ability to pay. The services also include dental care.

The legislature signed a contract with an FQHC in Chautauqua County in 2022, but the contract remains under review by the county attorney many months later, according to members of the legislature. 

The question of where the contract stood was brought up at a February 6th Budget Committee meeting, where legislator John Burin inquired to County Executive Christopher Moss about the issue.

"It would be from our interpretation that both the FQHC contract, and the incubator contract should have been drafted and approved by the county attorney, which wasn’t done in this case," said Moss in the February 6th meeting. "I believe the county attorney is working on the incubator as we speak to finish it, and then we’ll work on the FQHC after that, but I have several concerns in reference to that FQHC and the verbage that’s in the original contract that myself nor Hyder (Hussein) got to see until it was already drafted and sent around to the legislature."

Moss also expressed concern during the budget committee meeting, regarding the potential need to bid out the project. He stated that Finger Lakes Community Health, which operates several FQHC locations across the region, was interested in bringing a center to the Elmira area. When asked his opinion on a FQHC, Moss stated he was not in favor of spending a million dollars on it. 

At Monday night's legislative meeting, health care providers spoke during the public comment period to show support for an FQHC, and to spotlight the lack of services and care available to people without insurance in Chemung County.

"For one, let's talk about dental. There's no dental care for people that take Medicaid, or people without insurance. Let's talk about the little boy I heard about, he's five years old. He has no teeth – full of cavities. No access to dental care. And that's not right. Talk about a patient of mine, who has kidney failure, but has a lack of transportation to his visits. So he misses them. This is why we need it, this and thousands of other stories of people who can't access to healthcare system," said Dr. Richard Terry, D.O., the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs for LECOM at Elmira.

Dr. Terry went on to say FQHCs are also approved under the National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program, which would help draw new doctors to the area. He said it would drastically reduce the amount doctors have to pay on their student loans from medical school.

Nykole Parks, who works as a Community Health Coordinator with Arnot Health, said she often works with patients who face barriers to necessary medical care, due to their socio-economic circumstances - especially when it comes to dental care.

"We have no dental care here that would allow them to adequately take care of their family, they don’t have paid sick leave, so they have to drive, they take a Medicaid cab that our company pays for, to either Binghamton, to Rochester or Syracuse. It takes a full day of this family traveling to get this care. If we had this center here, it would be maybe a few hours. These families need this care," Parks said.

If the contract gets executed, and once the facility is established, the FQHC would be federally funded, and use no county funds for its operation beyond the initial one million dollars, according to county legislators.

Elmira doctor, Bruce Surosky, operates an OBGYN practice adjacent to Arnot Ogden Medical Center on Walnut Street. At Monday night's meeting, he said he would like to donate the property to serve as the FQHC facility. Surosky said there had been a miscommunication that he was looking to sell the building for a profit, but that is not the case. 

"I am donating it to the federal system so that they can use it for a health clinic, with no cost from them, other than I guess I get a little tax deduction, but you know what that means over a period of time. But I am donating it to the service because that’s what I want to see happen with this building," Dr. Surosky said.