HEALTH CARE HEROES 2026 AWARDS
Health Care Administrator: Morgan Leonard, Clinica Esperanza Hope Clinic executive director
What led you to choose health care as your profession? I chose health care because I saw how profoundly access to care shapes a person’s dignity, stability and opportunity to live a healthy life. Working with underserved communities showed me that building systems that expand access is one of the most meaningful ways to create lasting impact.
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How have you helped boost the quality of or access to health care? Since becoming executive director in 2023, the number of individual patients we serve has increased by 54%, total visits have increased by 63%, and new patients have increased by 55%. We have doubled our capacity to care for patients by expanding services through new partnerships and the dedication of incredible volunteers. With support from generous funders, we also completed a major construction project that doubled our clinic’s footprint to serve the many new patients who sought care during our COVID-19 testing and vaccination efforts, as well as new patients that had been impacted by Medicaid unwinding. Most recently, we established an in-house colposcopy clinic and implemented HPV self-testing.
What is the biggest challenge you and your organization are facing this year? The growing gap between the skyrocketing need for care and the resources available to meet it. Since Medicaid unwinding began, our patient volume has surged, yet without additional funding, we have already reduced staff and may have to turn away 1,500 Rhode Islanders by year’s end. The reality is that uninsured patients are seeking care earlier and more frequently, and while we can deliver high-quality, cost-effective care, sustaining and expanding these services requires policy and financial support to prevent lives from being lost and health care costs from escalating downstream.
What more do you feel the state can do to help further support the health care sector in Rhode Island? The state can strengthen Rhode Island’s health care sector by investing upstream and supporting safety-net providers who deliver preventive and primary care to uninsured and underserved residents before conditions become emergencies.
