For 50 years, Florida Community Health Centers (FCHC) has been Okeechobee’s medical home. Since 1976, generations of Okeechobee residents have seen our Clinicians for their pediatric and adult primary care. Over time, our services have grown to meet Okeechobee’s needs.

Now, our “one stop shop” for health care also provides dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, health education and coordination, Medicaid and marketplace enrollment, on-site lab services, translation services, and more.

We have earned the community’s trust at our Dr. Fred Brown Children’s Health Center and at Lakeshore Medical, having a track record of high patient satisfaction. We’ve proven our quality by earning national recognition as a patient-centered medical home, Joint Commission Accreditation, and multiple national quality awards annually. We have strong relationships with hospitals and specialty providers for a broad continuum of care and utilize EPIC to share health information with our patients and health care partners.

For more than 20 years, FCHC has provided OBGYN care for of the women in Okeechobee -- safely seeing up to 350 new Okeechobee babies into the world annually, and providing OB and/or GYN care to almost 4,600 patients in Okeechobee since 2019 alone! Our physicians, midwives, and APRNs have taken care of women at all points in their pregnancies and at all levels of maternal risk – all without ever turning anyone away for an inability to pay. Since 2002, FCHC has been a critical part of decreasing the maternal and infant mortality rates in the six communities where we provide prenatal care. It is our mission, intention, and desire to continue doing so for at least another 50 years.

For the past three years, FCHC has been sounding the alarm regarding the danger and impact of losing our ability to continue providing care to the Okeechobee community. We have been forced to make decisions about the level of access we can provide based on available financial resources. In full transparency, the current healthcare and economic landscape have created an inflection point. We believe that it is crucial to ensure access to high quality, comprehensive care for all of Okeechobee’s moms and babies. Without immediate intervention, however, local families will lose access to essential, high quality, and lifesaving maternity services. A rapid, unified, mobilization of community support and new resources is necessary to preserve high quality care for mothers and babies. As a result, we need to understand the community’s desire and capacity to sustain and improve obstetrical care in Okeechobee. With your support, we can meet Okeechobee’s needs now and in the future.

We are inviting you to a maternity care community stakeholder conversation on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026, at 5:30 p.m. Please join us at the Dr. Fred Brown Children’s Health Center, located at 2015 U.S. 441 in Okeechobee. Light refreshments will be available.

For those who are unable to attend in person, the TEAMS meeting option below may be utilized.

Microsoft Teams meeting Join:

https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/2212154363858293?p=EU h7XAbpUBlAP85j9e

Meeting ID: 221 215 436 385 829 3

Passcode: CL9Uj3gm

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Dial in by phone

+1 689-206-0375,,92875224# United States, Orlando

Phone conference ID: 928 752 24#

If you are unable to attend, but would like to have further discussion please reach out to me directly. You may also feel free to contact me with any questions.

We look forward to engaging with each of you to ensure that Okeechobee’s residents receive accessible, affordable, high quality, comprehensive health care – before birth and beyond.

Thank you,