The clinic treats about 60 patients every month, from anonymous homeless people to victims of tough times, like Irene Sundberg, who last year found herself on the other side of her frequent volunteer work.
The 27-year Tracy resident, who served a combined nine years on the City Council and planning commission, was forced to close her downtown shop when her husband lost his job in construction. Now, he’s making a quarter of what he earned before, and the couple are in danger of losing their home to the bank.
Sundberg, 57, needs to see a doctor monthly for her cerebral palsy and herniated discs, but she can no longer afford health insurance.
Last year, while seeking free medical help for a friend who needed it, she found a place for them both.
A team turns a back room at Tracy Interfaith Ministries, the local food and clothing bank, into a clinic walled off by stacked-up boxes of clothes, blankets and sample medicines.
There, doctors examine the young and old for colds, test blood pressure and perform full physical exams, and nobody gets turned away — unless they have insurance.
Every other Saturday, patients beat the doctors there and line up before the clinic opens at 9 a.m. They don’t mind waiting, because they know they’ll be seen.
From the ground up
In October 2008, two doctors and a social worker from Sutter Tracy Community Hospital set up the operation independently.
Doctor Khosrow Vakhshouri, a family practitioner, Michael Hurst, a doctor of internal medicine and pediatrics, and the hospital’s social worker, Kenneth Everett, founded the nonprofit and right away got $57,050 in three big grants. The hospital and local doctors donated gurneys, pumps for respiratory medicine and a $4,000 heart monitor. Drug companies gave them medicine.
The hospital’s intensive-care nurses hosted a fundraiser at Texas Roadhouse restaurant, and Sundberg and others volunteer to check people into the clinic.
After Vakhshouri and Hurst treat patients, they send them to Everett, who helps them get inexpensive medicine if the clinic has none for free and refers them to Planned Parenthood, Healthy Connections or Tracy Family Practice, with coupons for less expensive treatment.
“We stick our tendrils into things that are already out there,” Hurst said.
Most importantly, Everett finds out why his clients are without health insurance.
About 6 million Californians are uninsured. About 14 percent of San Joaquin County residents are without insurance, according to the most recent data from the University of California Los Angeles’ 2007 California Health Interview Survey.
The state gives Medi-Cal insurance to about 7.2 million Californians, mostly families with underage children. To qualify, a household of four must earn less than $22,050 a year. Low-income people who are older than 65, younger than 21, blind, disabled or pregnant can also qualify.
But that leaves a large chunk of people who fail to qualify for free insurance, Hurst said.
“The more we get into it, we’re finding not everyone qualifies for insurance,” he said.
As Congress grapples over legislation to cover those who lack insurance, Hurst said that makes Tracy’s free clinic even more crucial.
Sutter Tracy saw about 34,000 people in its emergency room in 2009 — and about 64 percent of them could have been treated in a doctor’s office, said Karen Mudd, Sutter Tracy spokeswoman. Of those, about a third had no insurance.
The hospital absorbs costs for its patients who can’t pay their bills, and while the hospital turns no one away, its doctors and nurses can inform patients about the free clinic after they are treated.
The closest free clinics outside Tracy are in Oakland, San Jose and Berkeley — each an hour or more away via crowded freeways.
Vakhshouri, Hurst and Everett see the local clinic as a relief for the hospital — it doesn’t have to cover uninsured patients, and patients still get help.
Looking for more
The clinic eventually wants to offer dental and vision checkups and be able to provide podiatry, pulmonary care, cardiology, infectious disease treatment and mental health services.
“We’re on the first floor of a 100-story building,” Everett said, metaphorically.
The clinic does no X-rays or lab work, among the most expensive of medical procedures, because it has no room for them.
The founders say what they need is real home, as Tracy Interfaith has no more space to spare.
“We’ve got the momentum, but right now we’re in limbo, because we’re trying to find a permanent place,” Vakhshouri said.
The clinic’s bank account is short of its $75,000 projected costs next year, and it wants to keep enjoying free rent.
The group asked San Joaquin County Public Health Services if the department could spare its public health clinic on Ninth and A streets.
That building has space for four exam rooms and a lab room, a reception area and an office, Hurst said. The county has it open Thursdays and some Tuesdays for shots and physical exams, for cost.
Karen Furst, San Joaquin County’s health officer, commended the Tracy-based group for what it has done, but she said the county has yet to discuss lending the clinic its building.
“The question has come to us, and that’s as far as it’s gone,” Furst said. “It’ll be considered.”
Until then, the clinic will continue to work with what it has.
In the room at Tracy Interfaith, Vakhshouri said working with so little reminds him what it is to be a doctor.
“It takes us back to the diagnostic skills we were taught in school,” he said. “When there’s the comfort level that people aren’t going to sue you like crazy, you don’t need to go through all these crazy tests. It’s about keeping people well.”
Hurst said the time he spends at the clinic has opened his eyes, too.
“Our medical system unfortunately drives us to be overhead-watching, bottom line-controlling, worried about malpractice,” he said. “It challenges us to go back to what we’re supposed to know as doctors.”
• Contact Tracy Press reporter Cassie Tomlin at 830-4225 or ctomlin@tracypress.com. At a glance
WHAT: Tracy Free Clinic
WHEN: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., second and fourth Saturdays of each month
WHERE: 311 W. Grant Line Road
INFO: http://tracyfreeclinic.org/
Is this a story about a medicinal marijuana clinic that is sueing marky?
The news lately has been full of negatives....the economy and the gangs and the robberies and the shootings and on and on.
These guys saw a need and met it head on. Doing the right thing, more people should try it.
If there are ANY fund raising efforts to support this, I hope the TP gets the word out. My family will be there to support them.
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