Malta’s new clinic was featured as part of a recent episode of Crossroads Magazine produced by the Office of Radio & Television. The episode aired on October 23, 2022. Here is a clip featuring Malta:
Malta’s new clinic was featured as part of a recent episode of Crossroads Magazine produced by the Office of Radio & Television. The episode aired on October 23, 2022. Here is a clip featuring Malta:
By Ed Stannard
Hartford Courant
Sep 19, 2022 at 3:38 pm
The Malta House of Care, whose van has offered primary health care to residents of Hartford and East Hartford since 2006, will begin welcoming its clients to a new, renovated, state-of-the-art site on the campus of the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford on Tuesday.
The Cathedral Community Center also will offer expanded space for the cathedral’s food pantry, which has already served more meals in 2022 than in all of 2021, according to Archbishop Leonard Blair.
Housed in a former church hall, the center has been “gutted, renovated and brought up to standard” to provide comprehensive primary care to the low-income population in the Asylum Hill neighborhood, said Vicki Veltri, executive director of Malta House, on Monday. Until now, Malta House has offered care primarily through its medical van, which serves patients at the cathedral as well as at two sites in Hartford and East Hartford, she said.
Blair said that since 2006, 70,000 free visits by uninsured clients have been served by Malta House. The new site is “just a remarkable transformation that’s been made possible through the generosity of many people,” he said.
“You need to try to get people where they are,” Veltri said. “People have limited ability for transportation. … So I think the location is going to serve the Asylum Hill neighborhood, which is the predominant neighborhood that we serve, very, very well. But it opens up the van to go to other places.”
The clinic “offers comprehensive primary care services and, I will say, longitudinal too, because we have patients that have stayed with us for a long time,” Veltri said. “Providers have been committed for a long time. So we operate with a small staff, but we also have the good fortune of having about 40 volunteers who also work with us to provide this care to our community.”
The volunteers include doctors, nurses, physician assistants and nurse practitioners, among others.
“It’s a tremendous group of people, very committed to helping people who cannot get coverage any other way,” Veltri said. “We’re looking at a population that cannot qualify for Medicaid or other coverage because either their status as immigrants or they don’t qualify for another reason for insurance coverage.”
Most patients are “very low income,” Veltri said, and represent about 30 languages and more than 50 countries of origin. There are Spanish and Portuguese translators on staff, “and I’m going to work on that as well, because we have a pretty large contingent of Portuguese-speaking patients” from Brazil and Portugal who make up a significant community in Hartford, she said.
Malta House also has been serving patients from Ghana at its East Hartford van stop on Mondays at St. Rose Roman Catholic Church, 33 Church St. The van also goes to St. Augustine’s Church, 10 Campfield Ave., Hartford, on Thursdays.
At other times, patients have been screened in the cathedral’s basement and then brought to the van for care.
Veltri said Malta House also had used a site on Woodland Street occasionally, “but it was smaller than our needs. We needed more space. And we needed to modernize it.”
The center has five exam rooms and private intake areas and is “much more, I think, amenable to our patients, who I think will see it as a beautiful site for them to come to for their health care,” Veltri said. Also, the new site “kind of frees us up a little bit to get some more neighborhoods with our van,” she said.
The center will also offer OB/GYN services, COVID-19 and flu clinics, behavioral health care and specialty days for dental, vision and cardiology care.
Malta House is run under the auspices of the Order of Malta, a lay Catholic order that offers care to the poor, Blair said. ” I think we offer a unique service and we’ve been around for a long time and we want to continue doing it and this clinic just helps us expand it,” Veltri said.
The food pantry, run by members of the cathedral parish, also will be able to serve more of those in need, Blair said.
“In 2022 alone, over 11,000 people from the Greater Hartford area were served at the cathedral food pantry, and there are more families and individuals in the first eight months of 2022 than in all of 2021,” he said.
He said the pantry will be able to expand its hours and be able to offer blood pressure screenings, nutrition counseling and ease food delivery to the homebound.
“The food pantry also helps people moving from homelessness or shelters to apartments, including women coming from domestic abuse shelters, and men and women coming out of incarceration,” Blair said. “Those things also wind up coming under the sights of the food pantry. … And they also give non-food items like personal hygiene things, diapers, clothing, housewares.”
Blair said 41 tons of food have been received from Connecticut Foodshare over the years. “So having this greatly enhanced food pantry at the cathedral will be a tremendous boon to the charity and fellowship that we want to extend to the local community,” he said.
“I don’t think people are aware, even our Catholic people or the wider community, of just how much service is extended through the Cathedral of St. Joseph,” he said. “And this new facility, thanks to the generosity of many people, is going to make it even greater.”
Ed Stannard can be reached at estannard@courant.com
Greetings-
Today I am writing to share with you, as our most important partners, exciting news about the future of Malta House of Care. Our board search committee has completed an extensive search for an Executive Director. After receiving over 70 inquiries and conducting personal interviews with several candidates including board and staff, the MHC board has confirmed the appointment of Victoria (Vicki) Veltri as Executive Director. She came on board a few weeks ago and has made an immediate positive impact with
her optimism and energy – the kind of energy that inspire others to get involved, reach out to others, and make a difference.
Vicki has served as the Executive Director of the State of Connecticut’s Office of Health Strategy (OHS) since its formation in 2018. She served as chief policy advisor for former Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman and at the State of Connecticut’s Office of the Healthcare Advocate, where she spent five years as General Counsel and five years as the Healthcare Advocate serving individuals and addressing systemic healthcare issues.
As a longtime supporter of the mission of the clinic and a leader and advocate for state efforts focused on access to high quality, equitable, and inclusive health care, Vicki has a breadth and depth of knowledge that complement her passion for the wellbeing of the people of Connecticut. With your generous support, Malta House of Care has made steady progress in providing critical primary healthcare to an uninsured and underserved patient population in the greater Hartford area for nearly 16 years. We welcome Vicki and look forward to her leadership in continuing our service to those in need.
Best regards,
Brian
Hello Friends of Malta,
This is where I want to be.
I believe healthcare is the most critical system impacting Connecticut residents, our communities, and our economy. Underpinning everything I’ve done, is about forwarding high-quality, affordable, healthcare. I’m proud to call Connecticut home and was honored to serve in state government for the past 16 years. Although my state work sought to improve lives from a policy standpoint, I wanted to work at the grassroots level, where I could touch the people in need – Malta House of Care is that place.
The Malta executive director position requires passion for people, people who historically have been underserved and need access to top notch, equitable primary care. This position is also about passion for the team and passion for the community, because to sustain Malta for the future, the clinic and its work will need to be woven into every part of the communities where it serves patients. Whether in East Hartford, my hometown, or the entire Greater Hartford region, the future of Malta requires a passionate leader who brings an advocacy and equity lens, leadership skills, development skills, and the instinct for and success in finding solutions to any challenge. Those are the skills I am determined to apply in the role.
Through your ongoing generosity and personal belief in Malta’s mission of care, for nearly 16 years, the lives of thousands of individuals and their families have been positively impacted. The need is great, and we face many challenges. However, our commitment to our mission is strong.
I invite you to join with me in this journey.
With gratitude,
Vicki
Vicki Veltri, Executive Director