A prominent Santa Barbara family is donating $5 million to the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics, which serves the health-care needs of about 20,000 patients a year, it was announced Tuesday.
“This is not only the largest family gift we’ve ever received — it represents something even more meaningful: a long-term partnership,” said Mahdi Ashrafian, the clinics’ CEO, in a statement. “The Wyatt family is committing to the health and well-being of our community for generations to come.”
The philanthropists are the family of Philip Wyatt, founder of Wyatt Technology Corp., which produces scientific instruments for medical and other uses. Today Wyatt Technology, based in Santa Barbara, is a unit of Waters Corp., with headquarters in Milford, Massachusetts.
As a result of the family’s gift, the organization’s new flagship health care center being built on Santa Barbara’s Westside will be named the Wyatt Family Health Center.
“Thousands of people in our community go without regular checkups, struggle to manage chronic conditions, or miss preventive care because they are uninsured or underinsured,” said family member Laura Wyatt in a statement. “This new facility will provide dignified access to the same high-quality care that insured patients receive. That’s something we believe everyone deserves.”
Scheduled to open in December, the multi-story health center is expected to add another 8,300 people annually to the clinics’ total number of patients. The new flagship clinic is being designed to serve as a hub location to four others, plus two dental offices and a separate facility devoted to substance use disorders.
For more than a half-century, the clinics have grown the point they serve one in 10 people in the southern end of the county, the organization says. The clinics are federally funded with the goal of catering to those who are underserved and often uninsured, whether or not they can afford to pay.
Members of the Wyatt family toured clinics, met staff and sat in on meetings over several months leading up to the announcement. They also met with patients. They said they were impressed with that they witnessed.
The clinics are ” the community’s ‘little engine that could'” when it come to compassion and quality patient care, said Monica Wyatt, another member of the family.
