Your Neighborhood Health Center
Making Roxbury Better Since 1969
Roxbury Comprehensive Community Health Center, Inc. (RoxComp) was incorporated on September 5, 1968 by local citizens in response to a severe lack of medical care in the Roxbury and North Dorchester communities. From its storefront beginnings, RoxComp has evolved to become one of the Boston area's leading providers of primary healthcare and outpatient mental and social health services.
The Story Behind RoxComp
RoxComp’s genesis dates back to 1966 when a Roxbury child experiencing abdominal pains was sent by his mother to seek care at a hospital emergency room. After waiting there for six hours, he was dismissed by a clinician who declared, without examining him, that he was feigning illness in order to avoid school. Still in pain the child returned home and went to bed. Later that evening, his mother returned with him to the hospital and insisted on an examination: the diagnosis showed a possible kidney infection. The child was hospitalized immediately.
The physician’s indifference to this young minority child infuriated his mother, whose name was Betty Wornum. This incident and her general discontent with the lack of medical services for the community led to a four-month period of intense collaborative meetings with concerned Roxbury residents, medical providers from Boston University Medical School, Harvard Medical School, and Tufts University School of Medicine. These meetings provided the critical forum in which to identify and articulate the lack of sensitive, affordable, and accessible health care services in Roxbury. A community based organization named the “Better Health for Roxbury Committee” was formed. Over a two-year period, Mrs. Wornum successfully secured federal funding and opened a temporary site in 1969, establishing RoxComp as Boston’s second oldest federally chartered health center.
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