(CN) — Seeking to improve facilities and expand critical services, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is awarding $129 million in grants to 172 rural health care organizations across the country.
Deputy Agriculture Secretary Xochitl Torres Small announced the funding on Tuesday at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The money will support organizations in 39 states and Puerto Rico and is estimated to expand access for more than 5 million people.
“During one of the most critical times in our nation’s history, the Biden-Harris Administration responded to deliver immediate economic relief and ensure rural people have access to quality health care,” Torres Small said in a press release. “USDA’s Emergency Rural Health Care Grants are helping strengthen rural America’s health care infrastructure to build for the future.”
The grants seek to support regional health care initiatives for small towns and communities.
For example, the third largest grant is $8.4 million for the Big Springs Medical Association in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, a rural area close to the Arkansas border that’s more than 140 miles from the nearest large metropolitan area.
The association is constructing a 102,560-square-foot facility as a centralized hub for obstetric, maternal fetal medicine and pediatric specialists and will connect its 12 satellite clinics in the group’s seven-county service area.
The biggest allocations are for construction projects, like the $9.9 million grant for the Bisbee Hospital Association to expand its facility in Arizona and $8.71 million for a new in-patient psychiatric unit for Southern Illinois Hospital Services.
But the grants run the gamut of payouts and uses. They are as small as $26,027 for Guara Bi Caney to upgrade telehealth infrastructure and computers in Comerio, Puerto Rico, and include several proposals to purchase medical equipment or update freezers for food pantries.
The funding was included in the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act and will be administered through the Agriculture Department’s Rural Development Community Facilities Program.
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