Filling a Need

March 27, 2008

Fourteen-month-old Rihanna Lopes, of Pawtucket, gets a checkup from Dr. Samrat Vilas Ambewadikar, known as "Dr. Sam," at the Blackstone Valley Community Health Center, a RIte Care facility in Pawtucket. The doctor had just spoken at a news conference promoting the importance of RIte Care to 15,000 children and families and calling for the continued financing of the managed-care health insurance program by the state. At right, Krista Taylor, second from right, takes her seat after speaking at the news conference about her positive experience with RIte Care as a divorced mother of two children.

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer