MISSION TIMELINE
IT STARTED IN 2012 WITH “YES”
WHEN GOD ASKS YOU TO GET OUT OF THE BOAT, YOU DO IT.
2012 | Mother and daughter nurse practitioners, Dede Chism and Abby Sinnett, discern the Holy Spirit’s call to open a Catholic healthcare clinic for women in the Denver-Metro area.
a vision is born
Abby Sinnett (left) and Dede Chism (right) opened Bella in 2014, originally as a life-affirming OB-GYN called Bella Natural Women’s Care.
2014 | On December 8th, Bella Natural Women’s Care opens in Englewood, Colorado, at 180 E. Hampden Avenue. The clinic is run by just six staff members, but patients begin to experience the Bella difference immediately.
bella health + wellness
Although Bella now practices medicine out of three clinics, the Englewood medical center is still Bella’s primary campus.
2016 | Bella contracts with Catholic Charities to provide clinical services at Marisol Health in Denver, Colorado and Lafayette, Colorado. Although separate in governance and funding, the two missions offer the first full continuum of care model in the United States, redefining the prolife footprint in America. Bella would provide the medical care and Marisol the social services.
serving the abortion vulnerable
Bella offers full medical services to women in partnership with Marisol Health Clinics, pioneering the only fully medicalized OB-GYN model of “crisis” pregnancy care.
2017 | Bella co-founds the national Pro-Women’s Health Center Consortium (PWHC). The initiative unites clinics across the nation in a common baselines in OB-GYN standards of care. Bella is the model after which future clinics will design operations.
creating a new catholic health care clinic
Bella is building a sustainable, repeatable faith-based health care clinic model that can be shared.
2018 | Bella surpasses 6,500 registered patients and boasts nine medical providers, definitively entering Family Medicine as a second specialty. Men, women, and children are now all patients of Bella. “Bella Natural Women’s Care and Family Medicine” is enhanced by the leadership of Dr. Sarah Hodack in primary care and Dr. Kathleen Sander (nee McGlynn) in Obstetrics.
patients are hungry for dignified health care
Bella averages 200 new patients every month.
2019 | NaPRO TECHNOLOGIES fully matures as an advanced OB-GYN specialty at Bella, with patients looking for a more natural, evidence-based approach to reproductive health care en force. Expansion into the west wing of 180 E. Hampden, Suite 101, offers Bella additional exam rooms and meeting space. Bella also celebrates 5 years of serving the community with the first Bella Ball.
NATURAL REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE leader
Bella is committed to leadership in NaPRO TECHNOLOGIES in the United States, including surgical options for couples struggling with infertility.
2020 | In January, Bella embraces the identity of “Bella Health & Wellness,” recognizing the group’s equal work in OB-GYN and Family Medicine. On March 17, 2020, Bella initiates emergency operations protocols in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Telemed is launched overnight and the first private practice, drive-thru sick clinic opens in the Bella parking lot.
BELLA’S RESPONSE TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
2021 | Bella welcomes the world’s leading Down Syndrome advocacy, research, and medical care organization, the Jerome Lejeune Foundation, headquartered in Paris, France, to the United States. Lejeune partners with Bella, treating patients from Bella’s Englewood campus through Bella CMO, Dr. Sarah Hodack.
Down Syndrome was discovered by the Foundation’s geneticist founder, Dr. Jerome Lejeune in 1958. Lejeune’s opposition to using his discovery to “eradicate” Down Syndrome through early detection and abortion of children with Downs resulted in his forfeiting of secular honors like the Nobel Prize. He is, however, in the process of being canonized a saint by the Catholic Church.
Bella’s sees a complementary mission with JLF, as today, 67% of children with Downs are aborted in the United States. As dark as that figures might be, In Europe, many nations boast to have eradicated the disease, with abortion rates near 100%. Through life-affirming health care, the two groups promote the innate dignity of all God’s people.
down syndrome care
Maria Mason and her dad, Keith, are part of the first group of patients treated by Bella and the Jerome Lejeune Foundation in the United States.