Ten years in the planning, a federally-sanctioned community health clinic is about to open its doors with a locally-based medical staff and a receptionist-financial planner capable of speaking the city's four core languages.

The clinic was organized to help shore up a weakness in the social services safety network on Cape Ann, where the population of some 45,000 includes about 12,000 considered to be without adequate, dependable health and medical care.

The other side of the problem is the dearth of family physicians on Cape Ann.

"We are a medically underserved area," said Jack Vondras, the city's public health director.

The functional opening of the Gloucester Family Health Center at 302 Washington St. awaits the state Department of Public Health's certification of the 6,000 square foot facility divided into 12 exam rooms for "health care quality," said Gloria Riley, chief operations officer for North Shore Community Health, which operates sibling health centers in Salem and Peabody.

Efforts to organize the clinic began in the administration of Mayor Bruce Tobey, but it was his successor, John Bell, who pushed for the multiple approvals by and waivers from the federal government to create what will be a family medical and dental practice.

Vondras said Bell assigned high importance to the project and decided that the goal should be to open a clinic that met all federal guidelines, which would qualify the facility for better reimbursement rates for prescription drugs, malpractice insurance and access to the pool of medical professionals in the National Health Service Corps.

The corps offers subsidized education and training in exchange for a commitment to working in federally-sanctioned health centers.

Staff at the Salem and Peabody clinics operated by North Shore Community Health were drawn from the corps and Riley said she expected to recruit from the corps for Gloucester.

For starters, the clinic will be headed by a full-time physician, Kathryn Hollett, who lives in Gloucester and had been practicing in Lawrence, until hired by Riley to head the clinic here. Family physician Rebecca Jackson will work part time.

Like the rest of the staff, nurse practitioner Christine Malagrida lives in Gloucester.

There will also be a social worker from the Health and Education Services division of Northeast Health System, the host and landlord for the health center, two financial counselors and two medical assistants when the facility is fully staffed.

The receptionist, who also serves as a financial adviser, is quadra-lingual — Portuguese, Italian and Spanish, as well as English.

The core constituency and reason Bell pushed for the center is the concentration of people needing access to preventative medicine. Most of these people live in and around the city center.

Vondras said the goal of the project is to get this constituency into a "preventive primary care and dentistry" protocol and away from the "acute care" approach that brings them in for medical treatment when emergencies arise.

Cost and outcome from this crisis-driven approach to health are recognized as inferior to preventative medicine. Without a primary care physician, many members of this at-risk constituency get their care in emergency rooms. Northeast Health System, which leases space to the health center in a building just across Ferry Street from Addison Gilbert Hospital, will do the laboratory work for the health center and take references.

The hospital will continue to qualify for reimbursement for treating patients of the health center. The health center will qualify new patients' insurance in the state's program that requires coverage.

The level of treatment offered will not be dependent on the level of insurance a patients has.

"You could have Blue Cross and you could have nothing and you'll get the same service," Vondras said.

Richard Gaines can be reached at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.