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Rising needs swamp area clinics

June 4, 2009 12:35 am

BY JIM HALL

Free health clinics in the region have been overwhelmed in recent weeks, forcing one clinic to close its doors to new patients and a second to cut back its available slots. A third is telling new patients that they must wait until July for an appointment.

"We are having a great deal of difficulty," said Becki Spitzer-Duday, office manager at the Community Health Center of the Rappahannock Region in downtown Fred- ericksburg.

The crush of patients has forced the Lloyd F. Moss Free Clinic in Fredericksburg to reduce the number of days it screens new patients.

The Fredericksburg Christian Health Center in Spotsylvania County has 70 people on the waiting list that it created after it closed its doors to new patients.

"We're heartbroken," said office manager Michelle Gomez.

Clinic officials list two reasons for the dramatic increase in demand: the region's slumping economy and the closing earlier this year of the Mary Washington Hospital Auxiliary Mobile Health Clinic.

Unemployment in the region remains high, at 6 percent in April. The April rate is down from earlier this year, but double the rate from last April and higher than any April in 17 years.

"The economy is running pretty ragged and putting a lot of pressure on us," said Rod Manifold, executive director of Central Virginia Health Services Inc., which operates the community health center in Fredericksburg.

The newly unemployed are adding to those with no health insurance. The Virginia Health Care Foundation estimates that about 45,000 people in the Fredericksburg region are uninsured.

The uninsured frequently turn to the free or reduced-price clinics like the Christian Health Center to get their medical care.

"Before we saw the truly indigent population, the real poor. Now it's the middle-class people who have been laid off," Gomez said.

The clinics also are trying to find space for the 1,900 patients who were "orphaned" by the closing of the Mobile Health Clinic.

MediCorp Health System closed the clinic in March when its nurse practitioner resigned. It has no plans to restart the service, a spokeswoman said yesterday.

When the mobile clinic closed, its patients immediately descended on the other clinics.

The Christian Health Center had been seeing about 235 patients per month, but the number jumped to 308 in March and 301 in April.

The number dropped to 278 in May, when one of its nurse practitioners went on maternity leave and another moved from the area.

The clinic is trying to recruit providers so it can resume accepting new patients, Gomez said.

At the Moss Clinic, the number of patients seen in the first quarter is up 23 percent, compared with the same period last year, said Karen Dulaney, executive director.

The demand for care at Moss can be seen each Monday and Wednesday, when patients begin lining up as early as 7 a.m. for the eligibility screenings.

Ten people from each screening are given appointments to see a doctor, usually within two weeks.

Moss suspended these screenings this week, as it has done during busy periods in the past. It will resume screenings next week, then skip another week, and resume them again at the end of the month.

"We're trying to restrict the number of new patients entering the clinic so we can be fair to the patients we currently have," Dulaney said.

The Community Health Center has added a nurse practitioner, who started last week, and a walk-in service to help deal with the flood of patients.

The first available appointment for new patients with complex problems is about six weeks off, Spitzer-Duday said.

But those with minor ailments, such as sore throat, can use the drop-in service that began last week.

The clinic has posted a clipboard near the front door, and patients can sign in beginning at 8:30 a.m. A maximum of 20 patients are seen each day.

"By the first hour we're already full," Spitzer-Duday said.

Kimberly Blackwell, 45, was one of those who had signed in and was waiting at the clinic yesterday.

She is a full-time waitress and the single mother of two children. Her employer, a pizza restaurant in Dahlgren, does not offer health insurance.

Blackwell's tooth had been bothering her for several weeks. The tooth finally broke while she was eating fried chicken on Memorial Day.

"It's been hurting ever since," she said.

She called local dentists who wanted $75 for an exam and X-ray and additional money for whatever treatment was needed.

So she got a ride to the clinic Tuesday from her home in Colonial Beach. The clinic dentist was not seeing patients that day, so she returned yesterday at 7 a.m.

The cost for the dental work there was $16.

"A lot of us don't have anything," she said. "I'm glad they have this service."

Jim Hall: 540/374-5433
Email: jhall@freelancestar.com