Lower Manhattan Medical Centers

Tomasz Wasik

Charles B. Wang Health Center

The Charles B. Wang Health Center, located on 268 Canal Street, is the largest medical center located directly in Chinatown. This medical center has a bountiful history. The Clinic evolved from a simple small street fair on Mott Street providing simple health checkups to immigrants and members of the Chinatown community to a large permanent home with over 500 full time members. This center mainly provides medical assistance to the Asian community (over 96% of patients). These Asian patients are mainly from China but there are also Korean, Malaysian and Vietnamese. (The Vietnamese and Malaysian patients do understand Chinese and are able to communicate in Chinese.) The center had to go through many difficult times, finding a permanent home, a steady supply of funding and a way to evolve from traditional Chinese views to a more American form of medication. The center also evolved its interaction with the community. Initially being a volunteer street fair, this medical center now provides with a multitude of services.

The Charles B. Wang Center was sparked by the idea of Dr. Thomas (Tom) Tam with the attitude of “Let’s be ambitious.” Chinatown in the 1970’s was going through an abundance of changes especially after the Vietnam War, the Immigration Act of 1965 that ended the discriminatory restriction against Chinese and the civil rights demonstrations and War on Poverty of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Starting in the early 1970’s young Asian Americans that felt great pride for their ethnic community of Chinatown organized the Health Fair organized on Mott Street. During this time, the need for medical treatment in Chinatown was immense. The main organizer Dr. Tam worked ambitiously with New York City and Chinatown to obtain access to Mott Street to provide some basic medical needs to the community. After considerable time, the city agreed and the Health Fair was allowed to go through.

The Health Fair had three main purposes: 1) To perform screening tests for major and common diseases and conditions, 2) To raise community awareness of minority employment issues at the new Gouverneur Hospital being built East of Chinatown and 3) to educate people about proper health care and disease prevention.

In the 1970’s, there were many cases of high blood pressure, diabetes, tuberculosis, high lead levels in children and many more. Due to this, there was a great need for medical tests in the Chinatown community. Several booths were opened and ended up the closing of three streets. Even though there were even several doctors on site, only so much could be performed on the street and since many of the volunteers were students that were available in the summer, it seemed that this organization might collapse. However, after the fair, several people that worked at the fair assisted some of the patients from the fair if they needed further medical attention by accompanying the clients to Bellevue Hospital where they served as translators since many Chinese immigrants knew very little English and had difficulty communicating. In the fair, the Charles B. Wang organization wanted to raise awareness in hospitals. “Nobody in the hospitals understands what the Chinese patients are saying. That is why Chinatown has such a health crisis.” At the conclusion of the fair, people, inspired once again by Tom Tam, began to demonstrate to Gouverneur Hospital on Madison Street to employ a significant number of Chinese-speaking staff in order for Chinatown to gain some economic benefit from the new facility. The fair was so popular and raised so much awareness that the Health Fair which was originally scheduled for one week was extended an additional three days.

What this fair showed about the Chinatown community was that it tended to keep to itself and rarely went outside the boundaries of the community when seeking aid. It was always very difficult for the Chinese immigrants to get aid from the city especially because of the language barrier and for many immigrants and that many immigrants where unable to afford medical assistance. However, for Chinatown to succeed, it needed money and help from the community.

Rather than reaching out to other communities, the Chinatown community banded together to create a powerful platform for the new Medical Center. By 1972, the clinic applied as a nonprofit organization in order to apply for grand from foundations and government agencies. The clinic was growing rapidly and by 1975, thanks to the huge assistance of Jane T. Eng, the Charles B. Wang Center was able to become a Federally Qualified Health Center (Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act), which enabled it to tap into state and federal funding. This allowed for the center to evolve rapidly. By 1979, the Charles B. Wang Health Center had a permanent site on Baxter Street and finally move from its temporary location inside of a church.

In the 1980’s the clinic went through a great growth but a difficult time as well. There

This image shows how Chinatown lives closely to Little Italy and how in the past years Chinatown has been expanding into Little Italy as many immigrants move out from Little Italy.

was a massive increase of Chinese immigrants to New York City. Over 50,000 immigrants moved into Chinatown by the end of the 1980’s and over 150,000 immigrants moved into other New York ethnicity areas (Flushing in Queens and Sunset Park in Brooklyn). This caused the expansion of Chinatown into Little Italy, which caused some tensions between the neighborhoods.

The increase of the Chinatown population and popularity of The Clinic was seen by the growing demand for services. As the clinic grew though, it concentrated more and more on the immigrant population since for them, this was the only place where they can get medical attention and communicate easily. Also, cutbacks in social programs during the 1980’s affected the major hospitals surrounding the Chinatown area. The Charles B. Wang Health Center ended up being the only place where many people could be treated. The Clinic began providing more community based programs such as education for pregnant mothers.

The Clinic also began fighting for more assistance from the government. The government took little interest in the Asian American community issues. The clinic, even though it still was able to receive aid, had to rely on the support from the community still. Eventually, with the community and the Charles B. Wang center working together, they were able to spark more minority interest especially Asians in the American government.

By the 1990’s the Clinic was so popular, that it moved yet again to a larger location on 125 Walker Street where they could start offering specialized care. The health center began having a much larger personal staff and obtaining many more grants and donations from the community. As the community helped, the center also gave back by providing more programs such as a Mental Health Program (known as the Bridge Program), and even expanding to newer locations not only in Chinatown to its current location on Canal Street, but also to Flushing. The entire time, the center still had its annual Health Street Fair. This center became an integral part of the community from providing medical care, to dental, pediatrics, and even educational and preventive outreach programs as well.

By the mid-2000’s the Clinic has expanded so much, it has now become part of the nation’s primary health care safety net. The Clinic now does not only give medical assistance but also gives assistance to low income families in financing and helping them apply for government assistance. The Charles B. Wang Center Health Center now sits comfortably at a large location on Canal Street with over 500 permanent employees and over 42,000 patients. Over ninety percent of its patients were best served in a language other than English. The clinic provides medical treatment to all people both legal and illegal immigrants and citizens. To families with difficult backgrounds, they attempt to organize easier payment plans and ways to apply for government assistance while illegal immigrants may assist ways to obtain citizenship. The Clinic has over 200,000 visits annually ranging for all ages. The center still remains true to its initial goal that began in the 1970’s by providing the best care in a form that best fits the community and empowering the community. The community itself remains relatively isolated and focused on sustaining itself rather than reaching out to other communities in order to mix and grow. However, the Charles B. Wang Health Center has constantly grown and interacted not only with the Chinatown community but also with other hospitals, federal government, and even other organizations and communities in order to obtain the best care for its community.

The Charles B. Wang center is still a major part of the community. In order to learn more about this center, Executive CEO Jane T. Eng, one of the many people that has her roots with the Charles B. Wang Center was willing to provide more in depth information about the Charles B. Wang Center’s current situation and mission.

Jane T. Eng CEO of Charles B. Wang Health Center

Jane has been part of the Clinic since its earliest years. Even though she left for a little while, she came back to it. She graduated high school as valedictorian and attended Barnard College and Harvard Law School. From this educational background, she could have chosen many lucrative careers but instead opted for a more humble position from the humble Charles B. Wang Center. When asked why she chose Charles B. Wang Center, she said,

“I was interested in community and public health. My father passed away when I was seventeen-years-old… When he said to me was, [at the hospital] ‘If somebody goes to a hospital, that’s where you die.’ My parents couldn’t afford health care because they had this laundry where their annual income was $5,000. So that really had a serious impact on my life. I felt that I wanted to have a positive impact on the community.”
Jane has done a copious amount for the center from helping it movie to its first permanent location to establishing it Qualified Health Center and more recently establishing its newest and largest location on Canal Street and helping Charles B. Wang Health Center to provide even more services to the neighborhood.

One way the Charles B. Wang Health Center interacts with the Chinatown community is through the radio. The Clinic has shows on two different radio stations (one station three times a week while the other once) where they discuss the most common medical ailments in the community ranging from diabetes, hypertension, tuberculosis, stomach ailments and more.

Project AHEAD (Asian Health Education & Development) is one of the oldest community oriented programs at the Charles B. Wang Health Center. This program, which has been with the Charles B. Wang center since 1975, is designed to provide training and experience for students that are interested in the medical field. This program was initially developed to assist the Asian community since for many Asian Americans; it was difficult to excel for Asians in the 1970’s due to the racism in the United States. Now this programed is more widespread but still is more focused on the Chinatown community.

The Charles B. Wang Health Center also has a lot of programs to help increase literacy in the community. Two programs to assist young children are the Reach and Read Program and the other program is Reading is Fundamental. These programs (sponsored by the federal government) supply the Charles B. Wang Health Center with a multitude of books including ethnic books. In order to raise literature awareness not only for the children but the older community as well, Book Fairs are organized in order to assist and maintain interest in reading.

As always, the Charles B. Wang Health Center still maintains its traditional Health Fair. One fair is in in Chinatown (lower Manhattan) and the other in Flushing Queens. These Health Fairs provide the traditional screenings and simple shots. The Charles B. Wang Health Center also visits certain senior citizen housing or nursing homes to provide flu shots and sometimes other small treatments.

The Charles B. Wang Health Center has become an integral part of Chinatown and a model health center for many areas around the United States by providing people with great care and always remembering about the community.

Wing Fat Company Inc.

            This is a small medicinal store located in Chinatown on Bowery Street. This store has been around for over 15 years and has been providing Chinatown with home medicinal remedies. In order to maintain privacy of one of the workers at the store, her name shall not be mentioned in this report.

The store is relatively small but houses multiple different products ranging from dried ginger and herbal teas to certain Chinese medicines that have been brought from China. Due to this, this store seems to shy away from Western Medications. It tends to be more Eastern Medication and acts as a first stop for many people before going to some clinic or hospital for treatment.

The store has customers of all ethnicities but has mainly old Chinese immigrant customers. These older customers tend to shy away from western medication and see the hospital as a waste of time. Due to this, the shop has a very small close-knit community of elder customers that buy certain medications here. Since this is a small shop, it also has little interaction outside this small community. People that go to the store come here for help on small medical problems such as a small cough, cold, or other minor medical illness. These customers tend to always come back to the store and rarely go beyond their comfort zone.

Since this is a store and not a large medical center such as the Charles B. Wang Health Community Center and the New York Downtown Hospital, it does not have the capability to interact directly with the Chinatown community. Here, they merely provide service to people that want to avoid these large western medical centers and prefer natural home remedies.

New York Downtown Hospital

The New York Downtown Hospital is the closest hospital to Chinatown and the only large medical center below Fourteenth Street. Even though this hospital is located not in a highly specific ethnic area, this hospital has a very high percentage of Asian patients [49% Asian, 15% Latino, 13% Caucasian, 11% African-American and 12% other]. This ratio is completely disproportionate to the other ethnicities. Downtown Hospital dominates the Chinatown inpatient market share with an increase from 46.8% to 48.1% between 2003 and 2005. The high percentage of Asian ethnicity at the hospital is due to the proximity of New York Downtown Hospital and that the Charles B. Wang Health Center and the New York Downtown Hospital have an agreement on treatment of certain medical problems. If a patient from the Charles B. Wang Center is to be hospitalized or will soon be giving birth, since the Charles B. Wang center is not large enough to house patients overnight, unlike the New York Downtown Hospital (NYDH), patients shall be moved to the large hospital where they can be treated for their ailments. The number Asian Americans coming to the hospital has increased even more in the most recent years due to the fact that there has been a massive increase of young families moving into the financial district.

Even though this is a massive medical center, it devotes a lot of its time to interacting with the community. The hospital has several programs that are independent of community such as Palliative Care, NICHE, ACE Unit, and On-Site Professional Practices. NYDH offers special medical and social service programs to senior citizens. Dzi Yuan: The Palliative Care Consultation Service at NYDH offers a full range of palliative care services to patients, their caregivers, and families, with a special focus on elderly Chinese and Latino patients.  Another initiative is the Nurses Improving Care for Health System Elderly (NICHE) program, which trains nurses to prevent or mitigate functional decline in older patients during hospitalization.  In 2007, The Hospital initiated the Acute Care for Elders (ACE) Unit, which provides specialized care to minimize the physical, mental and emotional effects of hospitalization on the frail elderly.

The NYDH also has several screening programs such as Breast and Cervical Cancer Education and Screening, Colonoscopy Patient Navigator Program, Osteoporosis, Vision and Hearing Screening, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Education and Screening, and Flu Immunization. These programs have been developed based on the highest demands in the hospital. Some of these programs are free and offered several times a year in order to help as much of the community as possible.

There are several programs though that have been created specifically due to the high number of Asian American patients at the NYDH. Some of the programs are the Tai Chi for Life, Free Chinese Language Hotline (a hotline that provides health information and access to community resources), and a radio program offered by The Chinese Community Partnership for Health. NYDH is the largest provider of health care for the metropolitan area’s vast and growing Chinese community.  CCPH offers community-based screenings for high blood pressure, cholesterol, vision and hearing; screening and treatment for breast cancer; health education workshops at worksites and community halls; maternal and child services; and a Chinese-language health Hotline.  Since its inception in 1994, CCPH has enabled NYDH to directly assist over 160,000 residents of the Chinese community.  The Hospital also provides translation services in Mandarin and Cantonese, 24 hours a day, through its Patient Advocacy Program.

Even though this hospital was never intended to help the Asian population of New York City, it has quickly evolved after the 1980’s from pressure from the Chinatown Community and actions of the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center. This medical center has had a growing influence in Chinatown and closely works with the Charles B. Wang Health Center to provide the best care for the Chinatown Community.