Plans to relocate and expand the University Medical Center at Princeton (UMCP) took a sizable step forward last week after Bristol-Myers Squibb made a multimillion dollar donation to build a new community clinic.
The pharmaceutical giant announced plans to give $6 million over four years to improve community health in the Princeton area, where the company maintains a major research center.
"Bristol-Myers Squibb has a significant presence in Princeton, New Jersey, and we're very committed to improving the communities where our employees live," Becky Taylor, a company spokeswoman, said.
The new clinic, which will be positioned on the grounds of the relocated UMCP in Plainsboro, N.J., will replace an existing clinic on Witherspoon Street in Princeton. The existing clinic currently serves about 5,000 uninsured or underinsured people, according to a statement announcing the donation.
"It's going to be the same clinic essentially offering the same services we have now, but with even more of them," said Pam Hersh, a vice president at UMCP who was the University's director of community and state affairs from 1990 to 2006.
Hersh said that the clinic would expand its offerings to cover mental health services, including individual and family therapy, addiction counseling and case management.
The community clinic will continue to serve primarily those in the area with little or no insurance. "We want also to assure that those least able to afford care can have access to health facilities," Taylor said.
The clinic's — and hospital's — move to Plainsboro made sense from a patient-care perspective, Hersh explained. "The hospital will be closer to 70 percent of its patients," she said.
Because of the donation, however, the UMCP will still be able to maintain a presence in downtown Princeton.
"We're planning a community outreach center to help people make appointments and arrange transportation," Hersh said.
The Bristol-Myers Squibb Community HealthCare Information Center will also provide community programming as well as host health fairs, screenings and lectures, a statement said.
The new clinic will open in 2011 along with the rest of the new hospital. An updated clinic on Witherspoon Street will continue to serve patients.
The donation was part of ongoing outreach efforts by the company in Central New Jersey. Among these efforts, Taylor said, was a program allowing students at Princeton High School to learn how medicines are made.
The donation comes on the heels of two other major gifts of over $5 million to the new hospital project, which will cost an estimated $400 million in total.
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