SACRAMENTO, Calif. — WellSpace Health started its own institution to help diversify its health organizations and better serve all communities.
During the pandemic, the non-profit health care system noticed a need for healthcare workers and started WellSpace Institute in June 2021. With the help of the Greater Sacramento Urban League and Bank of America, students go through the institute's medical training programs at no charge. They're paid while training and once they finish, they're immediately hired for a position within the dozens of WellSpace organizations in the Sacramento region.
"A part of that was reaching into those very communities that we serve. And bringing those people into areas where they could work in health care because there is a lack of people of color in health care and so we wanted to do something about that," Brenda Shipp, WellSpace Health Chief Operating Officer, said.
Ronald Ellison was one of those students. He joined the program after the pandemic dealt him a rough hand.
"At one point, I was working three different jobs and when the lockdown happened, I lost all my sources of income and had to go on unemployment," Ellison said.
After six months of training alongside professionals, he's now working as a medical assistant. Something Shipp says will help lead to less of the questions she's hears often.
"Why isn't there a doctor that looks like me? Why isn't there a nurse that looks like me? I wanna talk to someone like me, they don't understand me," Shipp said. "You recognize very soon, just even working with people, as a peer in conversations, that they don't necessarily understand the very people that we're serving because that true connection is not there. It's very important for people's well being to feel like they can talk to someone openly and have them truly understand what they're saying and not be judging in the conversation."
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