Northern Berkshire Family Practice Joining NBH

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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Northern Berkshire Family Practice will become part of the Northern Berkshire Healthcare family of care providers, NBH officials announced Wednesday.

Dr. William Kober will remain at the practice as medical director and is joined by Dr. Linda Hill, who most recently has practiced with Williamstown Medical Associates. Also joining the practice is Elizabeth Toomajian of North Adams, a family nurse practitioner. The medical practice is accepting new patients for primary care. The number is 413-664-4088.

NBH will purchase the building at 820 State Road.

"We're excited to welcome Drs. Kober and Hill, and Liz Toomajian to the NBH family, as we work to maintain and expand primary care services in the community," said Richard Palmisano, president and CEO of Northern Berkshire Healthcare. "It's no secret that there are immense pressures on primary care doctors across the state and especially here in Berkshire County, and it's important to do all we can to strengthen the provision of those services here."

Palmisano added that NBH continues to devote resources to physician recruitment, including recruitment in the areas of primary care, obstetrics and gynecology, surgery and other specialties.


Kober, a board-certified family practice physician, has practiced in North Berkshire since 1994, when Northern Berkshire Family Practice was established. He earned his medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine and served his internship and residency at University of Connecticut Affiliated Hospitals at St. Francis' Medical Center in Hartford.

Hill earned her medical degree from the Des Moines University College of Osteopathic Medicine and Surgery, and served a rotating internship at Brighton Medical Center in Portland, Maine. She also is a board-certified family practice physician. She came to North Berkshire from the Veterans Administration Primary Care Clinic in Glens Falls, N.Y., and has practiced in communities in Maine, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Toomajian completed her family nurse practitioner certificate program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She also holds a master of science in nursing from the University of Texas at Austin. Toomajian most recently has worked for the Neighborhood Health Center in Pittsfield, and for Southwestern Vermont Medical Center's department of employee and occupational health. She has also worked in North Adams Regional Hospital's psychiatric unit and, from 1995 to 1998, for Northern Berkshire Family Medicine.

Northern Berkshire Healthcare's family of care providers includes NARH, the Visiting Nurse Association and Hospice of Northern Berkshire, Reach Community Health Foundation and Sweet Brook Transitional Care and Living Centers and Sweetwood Continuing Care Retirement Community in Williamstown. Information: 413-664-5000 or www.nbhealth.org.
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Social Service Organizations Highlight Challenges, Successes at Poverty Talk

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

Dr. Jennifer Michaels of the Brien Center demonstrates how to use Narcan. Easy access to the drug has cut overdose deaths in the county by nearly half. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Recent actions at the federal level are making it harder for people to climb out of poverty.

Brad Gordon, executive director of Upside413, said he felt like he was doing a disservice by not recognizing national challenges and how they draw a direct line from choices being made by the Trump administration and the challenges the United States is facing. 

"They more generally impact people's ability to work their way out of poverty, and that's really, that's really the overarching dynamic," he said. 

"Poverty is incredibly corrosive, and it impacts all the topics that we'll talk about today." 

His comments came during a conversation on poverty hosted by Berkshire Community Action Council. Eight local service agency leaders detailed how they are supporting people during the current housing and affordability crisis, and the Berkshire state delegation spoke to their own efforts.

The event held on March 27 at the Berkshire Athenaeum included a working lunch and encouraged public feedback. 

"All of this information that we're going to gather today from both you and the panelists is going to drive our next three-year strategic plan," explained Deborah Leonczyk, BCAC's executive director. 

The conversation ranged from health care and housing production to financial literacy and child care.  Participating agencies included Upside 413, The Brien Center, The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, MassHire Berkshire Career Center, Berkshire Regional Transit Authority, Greylock Federal Credit Union, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and Child Care of the Berkshires. 

The federal choices Gordon spoke about included allocating $140 billion for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, investing $38 billion to convert warehouses into detention centers, cutting $1 trillion from Medicaid over 10 years, a proposed 50 percent increase in the defense budget, and cutting federal funding for supportive housing programs. 

Gordon pointed to past comments about how the region can't build its way out of the housing crisis because of money. He withdrew that statement, explaining, "You know what? That's bullshit, actually."

"I'm going to be honest with you, that is absolute bullshit. I have just observed over the last year or so how we're spending our money and the amount of money that we're spending on the federal side, and I'm no longer saying in good conscience that we can't build our way out of this," he said. 

Upside 413 provided a "Housing Demand in Western Massachusetts" report that was done in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's Donahue Institute of Economic and Public Policy Research. It states that around 23,400 units are needed to meet current housing demand in Western Mass; 1,900 in Berkshire County in 2025. 

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