Boston health center bringing fruit and vegetables directly to patients in need
BOSTON – A Boston program is bringing fruit and vegetables directly to patients in need as part of its approach to food insecurity.
The goal of any local health center is to go above and beyond for those in the community. That is the case at NEW Health, which is affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Medical Center.
"This is supposed to be a holistic care approach that really takes the individual and provides them with the care and support that they need," said Dan Coakley, public affairs coordinator for NEW Health.
On a recent day when WBZ-TV cameras visited, the location in Charlestown was doing their food distribution.
"This specific initiative started when the growing need of food insecurity became more evident to us. So we really wanted to come up with an alternative to give food directly to patients," Coakley said.
Once a month New Health purchases bags of fresh fruit and vegetables to distribute to patients who have been notified in advance.
"We usually buy bananas, apples, oranges. We try to aim for avocados because those are the superfoods and we also try to look for a variety of vegetables," Coakleys aid. "So this month we were fortunate enough to have asparagus, onions and potatoes as well."
Each bag goes a long way.
"Patients have said to me 'You don't know how many people this helps.' There was one patient in the North End that told me 'I share this with people.' So this is helping like 10 to 15 people every time we give them a bag of produce," Coakley said.
Once the patients on the list have their food, the leftover produce goes into the community refrigerator so anyone in need can have it.
"A lot of people in our community do need all of this help. So it's really great to have this to help those with the need," patient Carmen Tirado said.
"The gratitude we get is tremendous and we just want to make sure we keep providing this resource to everyone," Coakley added.