Community health leader sets precedents

Vidya Rao

Ruth Ellen Fitch has spent her life making history.

Whether it was being the first black female partner in a large Boston law firm or in her current role as the president and CEO of Dimock Community Health Center, Fitch has shrugged off challenges and stayed focused on her goals.

“Ruth is very professional and tenacious in achieving her goals,” said Clayton Turnbull, the chair of Dimock’s foundation board. “Anyone would love to have her on their team.”

This year, Fitch was chosen to be the honorary chair of the Massachusetts United Nations Day celebration, which will take place Wednesday at noon at the State House. She will be the keynote speaker at the event.

“I am really honored for myself and for Dimock,” she said. “The recognition that will come to Dimock and to community health centers everywhere is really exciting.”

The celebration commemorates the founding of the United Nations. The theme of this year’s event is “Maternal Health and Well-Being: A Cornerstone of the Millennium Development Goals,” a theme which Fitch says couldn’t fit better with the work and mission of Dimock Community Health Center.

“Maternal health is the linchpin of community health,” said Fitch. “If the mother is healthy, the family is healthy, and this issue is where the health care disparity becomes apparent.”

Fitch was chosen not only for the strides that she and Dimock have made in Boston regarding this issue, but for all the work she has done for health care in the community.

“We are delighted that Governor Romney has appointed Ruth Ellen Fitch as the 2006 Massachusetts U.N. Day Chair, recognizing her accomplishments as president and CEO of the Dimock Community Health Center and her role as a key community leader in the area of promoting women’s and maternal health,” said Lena Granberg, the executive director of the United Nations Association of Greater Boston. “She will provide an excellent local perspective on maternal health rooted in Dimock’s nearly 150 years of health care service by women doctors for women.”

For Fitch, her own resume seems to humbly take a backseat to the accomplishments of Dimock.

In discussing her greatest accomplishment, she says that “Dimock’s creation of programs and services that have been replicated in community health care centers around the country” is what makes her most proud.

But Fitch’s work prior to joining Dimock is just as impressive.

A native of Roxbury, Fitch received her bachelor’s degree from Barnard College in economics and a law degree from Harvard Law School, where she served for three years on the Law School Administrative Board. Fitch practiced law for 22 years, focusing on public law and financing cities and towns. She worked for Palmer & Dodge as an associate until, in 1991, she became the firm’s first black female partner.

As a lawyer, she received numerous awards and accolades from organizations including Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts, the Big Sister Association of Greater Boston and the Harvard Black Law Students Association.

In addition to her work in the legal profession, she also served as the director of METCO from 1974-1980 and taught a class on black literature at UMass Boston.

Then came an outstanding opportunity at Dimock.

“I retired early from law, and I wanted to find a leadership position at a nonprofit,” said Fitch. “It was definitely a change of scenery for me, but my strength in good administration and with financial issues gave me the chance to work at Dimock.”

Fitch has been the president and CEO of Dimock for two years supervising over 400 employees and managing a budget of over $25 million. In that time, issues in health care have become near and dear to her heart.

“In Boston, the local delivery of health services is very important,” she explained. “We work to make it easier for patients, and we educate them to demand excellence from their health care providers and private practices. At Dimock, [patients’] friends and neighbors are there, and we are here for all of them.”

Fitch also points to the innovative programming for patients around HIV/AIDS services, the inpatient and outpatient halfway house and other in-house social services that the center provides.

“The services Dimock provides are thoughtful and careful,” she says. “And my heart’s focus has been the health center, in making the operations fantastic.”

The speech with which Fitch will open the U.N. Day ceremonies will connect the health issues that women face on a global level, specifically lack of prenatal care and the risks related to childbirth, to the health disparities faced — particularly by women of color — in Boston.

“We are dealing with health disparities every day,” she said. “People of color receive a much lower quality care — and that’s the work we do at Dimock, serving the underserved.”

In looking to the future, Fitch doesn’t see herself going anywhere anytime soon.

“I’m thrilled to be back working in the community that I came from,” she said. “And I’m here — for the continuity of the program and to shepherd Dimock through all the good things we have been doing and will continue doing.”