LITTLE ROCK — More than 1,000 uninsured Arkansans with a broad range of medical ailments, including at least seven who required immediate emergency care, sought care Saturday at a free clinic at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.
Patients with heart failure and chest pain were among those rushed to emergency rooms.
“One with heart failure had just been in the hospital three weeks ago,” said Dr. Kimberly Garner, the clinic’s medical director and medical director of geriatric evaluation and management at Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System.
“It was recommended he see a cardiologist, but he doesn’t have health insurance so he wasn’t able to go in for a follow-up.”
Other patients were treated for maladies that ranged from arthritis-riddled joints to chronic pain to cataracts. The most common ailments were hypertension and diabetes.
The Communities Are Responding Everyday, or C.A.R.E., clinic was hosted by the Virginia-based National Association of Free Clinics, a nonprofit that supports more than 1,200 free clinics nationwide. It was the group’s third mass free clinic in recent months. The first was in Houston on Sept. 26, and the second was in New Orleans on Nov. 14.
Arkansas’ clinic had the largest volunteer support, said Nicole Lamoureux, executive director of the National Association of Free Clinics. Twenty-five organizations, including area hospitals, medical associations and other health-care providers, contributed volunteers and supplies for the clinic.
Each previous clinic had about 700 volunteers.
“We have 1,200 volunteers here today,” Lamoureux said. “Little Rock and Arkansas has really stepped up.”
About 50 physicians, representing such specialties as primary care, pediatrics, emergency medicine, orthopedics, and obstetrics and gynecology, were on hand to treat patients.
The event cost about $250,000, organizers estimated. The clinic ran from noon until about 9 p.m.
As the first few patients walked in or were rolled in by wheelchair, they were greeted by applause and cheers from the throngs of volunteers wearing matching red T-shirts for the event.
Patients were registered and led downstairs where the 82,982-square-foot Governor’s Exhibition Hall was filled with 48 blue-curtained private patient-examination spaces.
In the first hour, more than 300 patients had registered and were receiving medical care, Lamoureux said.
Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who along with his wife helped register some of the first patients, said the event was organized in a matter of weeks. Several people told Halter that they’ve recently lost their jobs and therefore lost health insurance.
Others have employers who don’t offer health insurance and can’t afford to pay for it on their own.
“There’s just an overwhelming need in our state,” Halter said. An estimated 450,000 Arkansans have no health insurance, he said.
In addition to seeing doctors for their specific complaints, every patient was given a full physical exam that included blood-pressure and cholesterol checks.
“Some of these people are telling me they haven’t been to see a doctor in 12 or 15 years,” Lamoureux said.
Patients ranged from young children to senior citizens, and many said they had delayed seeing doctors because they didn’t have insurance or money to pay for it.
Patient Vicki Hanson, 46, of Haskell said she made her appointment with the clinic a few weeks ago and counted down the days until it arrived.
Eight years ago, she was diagnosed with advancedstage colon cancer after going to an emergency room. She spent 13 days in the hospital and underwent six months of chemotherapy.
When she was done with treatment, the cancer was gone, but she was overrun with medical bills and filed for bankruptcy protection. Recently, she was laid off from her job after about three years with the company.
Hanson said she can’t get health insurance because ofher medical history, so she just goes without care.
“What scared me is that I haven’t had any follow-up care,” Hanson said. “It’s a vicious cycle. It just keeps on going.”
Bonnie Yancy, 69, of Little Rock said she has suffered with arthritis for years. It was so bad that she said she had to retire at age 62 from her job as a bus driver for the Little Rock School District. Doctors had told her she needed her kneecap replaced, but she had to wait three years until she qualified for Medicare to have the surgery.
Now 69, Yancy said she needs the same surgery on her other knee. She often has trouble standing up and hasn’t seen a doctor in more than six months. Even with some insurance coverage, she said, she can’t afford the out-of-pocket cost for the surgery.
Living on a fixed income makes it hard to afford even the medicine to help control the swelling from her arthritis, she said.
“I’m just bone on bone,” she said. “It hurts so bad.”
Twenty-year-old Sarah Hall said she hadn’t seen a doctor in at least two years and doesn’t have health insurance. She moved to Little Rock from Miami in September to live near her mother and plans to start college soon.
Diagnosed with asthma at age 2, Hall said she’s accustomed to Florida’s warm winters and is worried that her asthma will act up here.
“I know how I am when I get cold, I just start wheezing, and it’s just not worth it,” Hall said.
She went to the clinic Saturday to get a prescription to help keep the asthma under control.
Physician volunteers said the flood of patients Saturday offered a glimpse of the state’s immense unmet need for medical care.
Dr. K.J.S. “Sunny” Anand helped found the Harmony Health Clinic in Little Rock, which opened in December 2008 and offers free medical and dental care to the area’s poor and uninsured. He has since moved to Memphis, where he now practices at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center.
He drove to Little Rock to volunteer for Saturday’s clinic.
One of the goals is to get patients “plugged into the health-care system,” Anand said. Most of the people at Saturday’s clinic don’t have regular doctors and live with chronic health problems.
“They have health-care needs that are totally unmet,” he said. “They accept a lower level of health than you or I would put up with.”
Harmony Health Clinic’s executive director Eddie Pannell said he anticipated that his clinic would get at least 100 new patients after Saturday’s event.
Demand at the clinic is so high that many patients have to wait two weeks for appointments. Demand for dental care is especially high because fewer clinics statewide offer those services, he said. Harmony Health Clinic has about 112 people on its waiting list to receive dental care, he said.
“We could have this clinic every Saturday of the month and get 1,000 patients every time,” Pannell said. “The need is just so great, and I don’t see a remedy to that anytime soon.”
Kim Williams, a licensed clinical social worker, said there’s a 90-day waiting period to get in to see some area mental-health providers. Williams is clinical director of the Network of Wellness Behavioral Healthcare, which opened in downtown Little Rock in February. The center offers behavorial health services that are paid for on a sliding scale based on income.
Williams said patients she spoke to Saturday had a range of conditions, including bipolar disorder. Many complained of severe depression.
“That’s not to be unexpected in this climate, with the economy, and a lot of people don’t have health insurance,” Williams said.
The Little Rock clinic was set up after a push by cable channel MSNBC personality Keith Olbermann to hold mass clinics in large cities to draw attention to the need for health-care legislation.
But even with Saturday’s Senate vote on proposed legislation in Washington, D.C., Halter declined to discuss the debate in Washington.
“We have as a group decided to make this a nonpartisan event. The focus today is about providing medical care,” Halter said. “I’m going to keep my political opinions to myself.”
The National Association of Free Clinics’ next stop is Kansas City, Mo., where it will host its fourth clinic Dec. 9-10.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/22/2009