BY ANGELA STEWART
Star-Ledger Staff

When Lucy Galvez showed up for an appointment last week at her local health center in Newark she knew there would be a short wait before her son could see the doctor.

"Sometimes it's a half-hour or so. But the center is very convenient for me and the service is good," Galvez said through a Spanish interpreter. The mother of five was at the Broadway site of Newark Community Health Centers so her 14-year-old son, Esteban, could get his annual physical.

The center is part of a network of 19 federally qualified health centers and 95 satellite sites in New Jersey, providing a safety net of care to the medically underserved. These centers are located in high-density urban areas, as well as rural communities, in places like Burlington and Salem counties with a large, diverse population of minority residents.

But many of these centers -- there are also four mobile units -- are reporting a significant increase in demand for services, raising questions about whether the system is being stretched to the limit.

READ MORE: http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1206250716200030.xml&coll=1

---