It was announced in early April that $135 million was coming to Arizona from the American Rescue Plan and it is now being disbursed to help community health center's fighting COVID-19.
That includes Yuma County's Sunset Community Health Center. It is one of 23 Arizona health care centers to receive the funding throughout the state.
"We needed additional resources," said David Rogers, Sunset Health's Chief Executive Officer. "We kept being told that it would come at some point...this $4.7 million was honestly a complete surprise."
Rogers says the funding will help bring back some of the workforce lost during the peaks of the pandemic.
"This additional funding will help us true up some of the existing salaries we have, and then fund salaries for new positions," Rogers said.
The health center is not only seeing a surge in the return of patients back into primary care settings but it is also continuing to sustain the ability to do covid testing and vaccines.
"We have seen a decrease in the demand for COVID testing, but nonetheless we still have the capability and staffing models in place to be able to perform testing whenever the need arises," said Rogers.
The care center is still at its peak of the vaccine distribution, in fact, rogers says it is administering nearly 1,200 shots a week.
