Press Release

Release Date: August 29, 2011
HRCHC Contact: Communications Department
Telephone: (207) 861-3466
Email: Communications@HealthReach.org

Lose a Moose, regain your health with community weight loss program

MADISON –If you have been to the Madison Area Health Center lately, you may have thought that a very agile moose has run wild inside. Moose tracks currently cover the walls of the hallway where nurses lead patients to the exam rooms. The tracks are evidence of the health center’s new initiative to motivate patients to lose weight and maintain a healthier lifestyle.

Lighten Up Madison is a community weight loss program that began in July. Since then, 92 patients have lost a total of 429 pounds, well on their way to the program’s first goal.

“We want to lose a moose,” says Barbara Belliveau, practice manager. “Our first goal is to lose a combined 1,500 pounds, or the weight of an average moose.”

Belliveau plans on continuing the program for a year, when she will tally the total weight lost and have a celebration next summer. The pounds, and moose prints, are adding up quickly. When a patient has lost weight since their previous visit, he or she writes the number of pounds lost on a moose print and add it to the wall. It is a visual testament to the health center’s preventive care approach toward health care, and of course, to all the hard work and dedication of Madison area residents to shed those unhealthy pounds.

“As a community health center, it is our goal to treat the whole patient, not just diseases,” says Stephen Dickey, FNP. “Weight and overeating have become a serious issue in the United States. Thousands die each year from heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, preventable diseases that could be avoided, or even reversed, by changing to a healthy diet.”

Leading the way in preventive care, the health center also provides several outreach opportunities to residents of the greater Skowhegan area, including the nationally certified Living Well for Better Health program that ran in the spring, a six-week program that teaches participants how to deal with chronic conditions. The health center is also host to a series of free educational health programs that run throughout the year.

For more information on these programs or to set up an appointment, call the health center at (207) 696-3992 or visit www.MadisonCHC.org.

MAHC (www.MadisonCHC.org) is a practice of HealthReach Community Health Centers (HRCHC), a system of eleven federally qualified health centers in Central and Western Maine. Dedicated providers deliver high quality health care to citizens in over 80 rural communities.

To ensure access for everyone, HRCHC accepts major insurances and Medicare and MaineCare, offers an Affordable Care Program based on family size and income to uninsured and underinsured residents, and assists patients in enrolling in programs that help pay for health care and medications. A private, non-profit organization with a 36-year history, HRCHC is funded by patient fees, grants and individual donations.