Medical-Legal Partnership Project

Article in the Hartford Courant highlights the work of the Medical-Legal Partnership Project’s (Hartford, CT) Energy Clinic and their work to pass a bill to expand utility shut-off protection for households with young children.

HARTFORD — State lawmakers are discussing a measure that would bar utility companies from shutting off electricity or gas to households with children under 2 years old. Those who voiced their support Tuesday for the bill before the legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee said infants and babies don’t have the ability to regulate their bodies’ temperatures as well as older children and adults do, making them particularly vulnerable to heat shutoffs...

The Center for Children's Advocacy's Medical-Legal Partnership Project (MLPP) in Connecticut has appointed Sarah Schlegel, M.D. as the project's Medical Director. The MLPP, a medical-legal collaborative that improves the health and welfare of low-income children and their families, provides legal assistance on site at hospitals and medical clinics serving greater Hartford's poorest neighborhoods.

Felicia Harris knows what it is like to gain a powerful voice on behalf of her 10-year-old daughter Tamia. When Felicia sought care for her daughter, who suffers from cerebral palsy, she found numerous challenges. Felicia remembers talking with a pediatrician at Saint Francis, Fred Bogin, M.D., about her frustrations and the feeling of relief when she learned that there might be help from a "team" that understood the medical, social and legal needs of her family...

Dr. Monique Deveaux went to medical school at Yale and spent years in a suburban private practice, but when this seasoned pediatrician hung out her shingle in one of Hartford's poorest neighborhoods she encountered problems she felt completely ill-equipped to treat. She knew from her training to suspect that one of her patients had a brain tumor. But how could she persuade a recalcitrant insurance company to pay for his care?

"The Medical-Legal Partnership Project at Connecticut Children's celebrated its first birthday..."