DATE: Wednesday, October 1, 1997 TAG: 9710010463 SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 112 lines
They don't take in a dime, but business is booming.
The Chesapeake Care free clinic's small waiting room often overflows with patients, the line meandering out the door and down the street. Nurses sometimes make room by asking patients' family members to leave.
And it's only going to get busier.
Corporate downsizing and a growing reliance on part-time workers - many of whom receive no health benefits - are swelling the clinic's patient base, said executive director Janet Call, a nurse practitioner.
The clinic, which provides medical care to those without private insurance or public assistance, turns 5 years old today. It has outgrown its current home and is looking to double the 2,000 square feet of office space it now occupies on Indian River Road, said founder Dr. Juan Montero.
``We can only see the first 30 people who show up on a primary care day,'' said Dr. Richard Wertheimer, a neurologist and one of the more than 2,000 people who have donated time or money to the clinic.
``We just can't fit any more people in here,'' Wertheimer said. ``We have a very long waiting list already - as long as a month for some of our specialties. We thought we were crammed in the beginning, but we've only gotten more crowded.''
The clinic does not have enough room to store prescription medications in its small pharmacy, Call said. Roughly 80 percent of clinic patients receive medications.
``It's hard to move around now,'' Montero said.
With a larger facility, Chesapeake Care could expand its health education and dental programs, Call said. The clinic would like to provide the same preventive dental care to adults that it now gives to children.
The clinic's patient base has changed over the years, Call said.
Chesapeake Care opened in 1992 - in the wake of a recession and widespread layoffs. But the clinic is seeing more patients today than ever before, in spite of one of the longest sustained economic expansions in decades.
Chesapeake Care handled between 1,500 and 2,000 patient visits in its first year. Call expects 4,000 visits by the end of 1997, with as many as 125 visits a week.
``There are more working poor now,'' she said. ``We're seeing a shift. We're not seeing people who've lost their jobs. In the beginning, we'd get (laid-off) factory workers, shipyard workers, even executives who had lost their jobs. Now we're seeing people who are getting jobs, but they're service jobs without benefits, or they're part-time jobs.''
Across the country, the number of part-time jobs has risen in the past two decades.
Part-time workers accounted for about 14 percent of employed people in the nation in 1968, but 18.3 percent in 1996, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which tracks work force statistics in industrial countries, lists the percentage of part-timers even higher, at 26.5 percent in 1992.
While unemployment is low - May's 4.8 percent unemployment rate was the lowest since 1973 - many of the new jobs created are in low-paying service industries.
From 1994 through April 1997, the U.S. economy generated 19,000 jobs in well-paid fields such as manufacturing. But the economy created 428,000 retail-store jobs, which are often low-paying and less likely to provide health insurance.
With so many who need help, Chesapeake Care can provide only ``Band-Aid health care,'' Call said.
The clinic isn't alone, however. Services not offered by Chesapeake Care - such as certain tests and surgeries - are usually provided by Chesapeake General Hospital or other local facilities. The clinic even recently arranged its first open-heart surgery, Montero said.
Chesapeake General has donated $1.08 million in treatments and services since 1992, said director of marketing Mindy Hughes.
Many clinic patients have nowhere else to turn.
On any given night, Dr. Edward S. Hanna said, he treats patients with problems as serious as breast lumps, gastrointestinal bleeding or HIV-related complications.
``One patient I admitted to the hospital Wednesday had AIDS,'' said Hanna, a family practitioner and one of the clinic's original volunteers. ``Up to last week he was just HIV-positive, but he has a lung infection, which could mean he may now have AIDS. He's been without medicine since November of 1996.''
Many of those who rely on Chesapeake Care would otherwise visit emergency rooms - where expenses can be astronomical. ``Then, people have to deal with the financial crisis after the medical crisis,'' Hanna said.
Keeping emergency room costs down saves money for hospitals and taxpayers, Hanna said. To him, Chesapeake Care is not a charity.
``I don't like the term `poor,' '' Hanna said. ``It makes it sound like you're giving them a handout. These patients are people who are generally working people or people who wish they could work. They have regular jobs but they don't have insurance, they're mothers who are trying to keep their families together. . . . We're there because we'd like someone to take care of us if we were sick.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
JIM WALKER
Chesapeake Care's waiting room is often so full that there are lines
of people waiting to get in.
Photo
JIM WALKER
Stella Pinkham, a technician, works in a pharmacy that is too small
to store the drugs needed by the Chesapeake Care free clinic, which
hopes to double its 2,000 square feet of office space.
Graphic
HEALTH CARE: The 5-year-old clinic provides medical care to those
without private insurance or public assistance. KEYWORDS: MEDICAL CARE
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