Gateway Community Health Center, which serves approximately 30,000 registered patients between their six clinics in the area, recently received $291,000 in federal funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Health Center Cluster Program and the Quality Improvement Awards.

The Health Center Cluster Program, which awarded Gateway $167,000, works to achieve health equity in rural and underserved areas.

With this money Gateway Community Health Center will ensure that underserved communities in Webb and Zapata counties have access to behavioral health care by helping to fund two licensed professional counselors and one pediatric psychiatrist, according to U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar’s office.

This funding will also support health educators who work with the community to teach them about the impacts of substance abuse.

The Quality Improvement Program distributes funding to health centers to expand their quality primary health care service delivery.

This award also recognizes the highest performing health centers nationwide, according to Cuellar’s office.

Gateway was awarded $31,889 for clinical quality improvers, $5,750 for access enhancers, $25,875 for health disparities reducers, $5,750 for advancing health information technology and $55,000 for patient centered medical home recognition.

In a virtual news conference on Thursday, Cuellar said that if Laredo didn’t have the Gateway Community Health Center, it would be a very different community.