From the Long Beach Post
by Maison Tran
To mark the 35th year of World AIDS Day on Friday, St. Mary Medical Center unveiled an expansion of its CARE Center — a new facility that will offer more services and resources to the city’s LGBTQ+ community.
Once made up of offices scattered around the medical center’s campus, the CARE Center at Dignity Health now sits in one consolidated facility that has almost double the number of rooms to see patients, funded much through the St. Mary Medical Center Foundation’s $2.3 million CARE expansion project.
Founded in 1986 during the rise of the AIDS crisis, the CARE Center has served the LGBTQ+ community for more than three decades, offering services like HIV medical and health care, a food pantry, STI testing and treatments and PrEP HIV preventative care.
“We’ve always treated everyone with respect and dignity,” said Paul Lovely, executive director of the CARE Center. “It’s important for our patients to know how much they’re worth to us.”
Read more on the Long Beach Post
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Additional information on the SMMC CARE Center
- The CARE Center’s mission is to provide comprehensive services for people living with HIV and who are at high risk of becoming infected with HIV.
- 1,600 HIV-positive patients receive treatment at the CARE Center.
- The new 20,000 square-foot center offers dental care, behavioral health services, support groups, counseling and therapy sessions and art workshops.
- Learn more about the CARE Center in this Inside SOCAL video.
- SMMC and the CARE Center are part of Common Spirit Health.