Faced with need for free care, medical volunteers expand clinics
Scores of people have shown up on weeknights at a local temple and a church. But they haven't gone to pray. They have gone to see a doctor.
The MetroWest Free Medical Program, a nonprofit organization that has been operating out of Congregation Beth El in Sudbury since 2004, opened a new site last month at First Parish in Framingham to meet the growing demand for medical care among the area's uninsured or underinsured residents.
Organizers realize they are providing only a stopgap measure for the program's clients. But they say the free clinics not only save the medical system money by providing essential preventive care, but also help vulnerable people who otherwise would fall through the cracks, despite the state law aimed at providing universal healthcare.
"We think of the new health insurance as covering everyone, and some patients still aren't covered," said Gary Hirsch, the program's president. "There are folks walking around without documentation who aren't eligible."
Both clinics are staffed by volunteer medical personnel and paid Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking interpreters, Hirsch said. The Massachusetts Medical Society pays for the malpractice insurance that covers volunteers while they work at the clinics.
After Massachusetts approved the healthcare coverage law in 2006, the number of newly insured patients in the state started to grow, and so did the demand for care, say medical professionals and advocates for healthcare reform. But most undocumented immigrants are not eligible for state programs, fueling a need for another way to provide them with medical care, they said.
The Congregation Beth El site, at 105 Hudson Road in Sudbury, is open Tuesday nights, and serves as a walk-in clinic offering primary care for adults and children, lab work, X-rays, and social services. Over the past six months, the program has seen an increase in patients, going from 20 to 25 patients per night to 30 to 40, Hirsch said.
The Framingham Centre site, which is open Thursday nights and Friday afternoons at the Unitarian Universalist church at 24 Vernon St., focuses on women's health and vision care, and is conducted by appointment only.
Similar programs have cropped up across the state in places such as Worcester and Waltham, say advocates. According to the National Association of Free Clinics, community-run programs raise over $300 million a year in private funds, which are used to provide care for approximately 3.5 million uninsured and underinsured patients.
Ilene Hofrenning, director of student health services at Framingham State College and an organizer of the free medical program's First Parish operation, said that opening a local clinic made sense since many of the patients seeking help in Sudbury are from Framingham.
The idea has been to feed patients into the established medical system by sending them to the Framingham Community Health Center, but it has a long waiting list, Hofrenning said. Meanwhile, the Framingham site, which has at least 10 volunteers working at the clinic, is booking appointments into next month.
"Right now, it is meeting a need," the nurse-practitioner said.
Still, the program's organizers note that it is not the ideal way to provide medical care.
"Our goal is that we won't need to exist, that eventually people will have access," said Dr. Laura Bookman, a gynecologist who volunteers in Framingham. "Eventually the goal would be to have everybody be in one medical system."
The MetroWest Community Health Care Foundation, which has given the program more than $134,000 in grants since its inception, recognizes the need the program fills, said Martin Cohen, foundation president and chief financial officer.
But the foundation also realizes that the program has its limitations, he said. "You really want a medical home for folks, and you can't have a medical home one night a week in the back of a church."
Still, volunteers say they participate out of a deep commitment to the idea that adequate healthcare should be available to everyone, even if it means creating a makeshift medical setting. On any given night in Sudbury, there are 10 clinical staffers, along with two to three social workers and eight people who help manage the flow of patients, said Karin Segal, a nurse who oversees the operation.
"It's a deep-founded belief that everybody deserves medical care," she said. "Most people that are involved were also very active in working toward getting healthcare reform passed, so we all believe in what we're doing."
To volunteer or find out more information, go to www.metrowestfreemedicalprogram.org. 