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Chicopee Dental Center expands its services

Date: 8/23/2011

Aug. 24, 2011

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor

CHICOPEE — When the Attorney General asked the Holyoke Health Center (HHC) at the start of this year to be the custodian of the records for the bankrupt All Care Dental in Chicopee, HHC Executive Director Jay Breines said the health provider didn’t realize that it would eventually expand its own dental services into the space on Memorial Drive.

The Chicopee Dental Center opened July 1 into the shopping area near Wal-Mart and Breines said the eight-chair facility is the result of increased demands for adult dentistry services.

HHS has expanded pediatric dentistry into its other locations — at the Holyoke Health Center, the Chicopee Health Center and Springfield Technical Community College. The new Chicopee Dental Center was opened to specialize in services for adults, he explained.

Breines said there has been a huge growth in dental services this year offered by HHS. It opened four locations offering access to dentists.

HHS is a “safety net provider,” Breines explained, and with the recession many people who have limited incomes have foregone dental services.

“The whole dental world has been hurt by the slowdown,” he said.

Many of the dental patients who come to HHS are on Medicaid and Breines noted there are 65,000 children on Medicaid in the area, creating a considerable need for pediatric dentistry.

The need is so great HHS operated a two year post-graduate program in pediatric dentistry, he added.

Breines said that some of All Dental’s former patients have returned to the newly remodeled facility.

For more information on the dental services, call 420-6280.

The Chicopee Dental Center is the latest new business on Memorial Drive. The con-struction of the Chicopee Crossing development is underway and an Aldi’s supermarket is planned for the shopping area as well. Mayor Michael Bissonnette said there is still room for more development.

Bissonnette said the demolition of the former International House of Pancakes has brought about a purchase and sale agreement for that property, although an issue about an access driveway to the Wal-Mart/Home Depot shopping area is still an unresolved concern.

There is the former Topor Dodge site available for redevelopment, the mayor added ,as well as a wooded area owned by the parish of St. St. Stanislaus Basilica.



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