By Kathy McCabe
Boston Globe Staff

Community groups will share $1 million in private money to address opiate addiction, chronic illness, cancer prevention, and other urgent public healthcare needs north of Boston.

The funding will be made available over the next five years under a community benefit agreement for the $20 million renovation of Salem Hospital by North Shore Medical Center. State law requires private hospitals to allocate 5 percent of a construction project's cost to improve local community health funding. The first round of funding will be available in October 2008.

Under the agreement, $700,000 will be spent in Lynn, a city of about 90,000 people that has high rates of lung cancer and opiate addiction. The rest will be given to the North Shore Community Health Network, a coalition of 17 communities from Saugus to Rockport.

Public health advocates said the money will be a boost to local efforts to curb such things as her oin addiction and childhood obesity.

"This is a super opportunity for us," said Laura Gallant, a board member at Lynn Community Health Task Force, an advocacy group. "We have many goals, including [curbing] disparities in healthcare. . . . We recognize now we must implement this" funding.

Peg Sallade, coordinator of the North Shore Community Health Network, said the funds will be used to provide mini-grants for community groups to address chronic disease prevention and other unmet local health needs. "We're going to make sure the money gets to organizations that serve people most in need," Sallade said. "We're happy to be able to work with the hospital."

North Shore Medical Center, the region's largest healthcare provider, is spending $20 million to renovate medical and surgical floors, intensive care, and other areas, including respiratory therapy, at its flagship Salem Hospital. The plan calls for rooms that have four beds to be converted into private rooms.

North Shore originally considered investing the $1 million in community benefits on the Salem Family Health Center, a community health clinic on Congress Street, near The Point, a low-income neighborhood that is predominantly Hispanic.

The Lynn Health Task Force - which has long pressed North Shore Medical Center to improve healthcare for the urban poor - felt the plan did not address regional healthcare needs. They petitioned the state Public Health Council to hold a public hearing in Salem last August. "We weren't opposed to them helping the Salem health center," Gallant said. "But we felt [funding them] was a continuation of something they already do. We didn't think it added new resources, or access, to healthcare on the North Shore."

North Shore Medical Center representatives met with the task force to draft a new agreement. Under the new plan, the hospital will pay $200,000 annually for five years, starting in October 2008. The state Public Health Council approved the plan on Oct. 10.

"We were happy to work with them," said Lori Long, director of community relations at North Shore Medical Center. "We hope this will continue to address health disparities."

Long noted that North Shore already provides more than $1 million in community funding for Lynn nonprofit and community organizations out of its annual budget. "We spend five times the amount of this [community benefits plan] each year in Lynn," she said. "We know the community has needs."

Lori Berry, director of the Lynn Community Health Center, agreed. "They deserve credit for the support they provide for us," Berry said. "They have helped us grow in the community."

Lynn Community Health Center could benefit from the new funding, however. The center has applied for a state grant to offer suboxone treatment, a new method of treating opiate addiction. The center would work with Project Cope, a Lynn-based counseling service, to offer the treatment. The grant application is due on Monday, Berry said.

If the center does not receive the grant, it will receive $500,000 of the $700,000 earmarked for Lynn to offer the treatment at its downtown facility.

If it does receive the state grant, the money would go to improve cancer screenings, transportation, and bilingual signs for patients at Union Hospital in Lynn, which is owned by North Shore Medical Center, and Salem Hospital.

"The idea is to connect people with the support services they need," Gallant said. "That could be a taxi ride to a medical appointment, or linguistic services, if that's appropriate. . . . We've got this agreement, which is good. Now we're charged with rolling up our sleeves and making this happen."