Clinic cares for uninsured workers

The Faith Family Clinic at 700 S. Zarzamora St. held its grand opening ceremony Friday, but it has quietly seen patients since November. Operating on a shoestring budget with volunteer doctors, the clinic is the brainchild of a health care executive in Nashville, Tenn., who opened a similar clinic there a decade ago.

“Now that we see health care reform legislation kind of dashed on the rocks, I think it's more obvious than ever that for 45 million or so people who don't have health insurance, there's a great need,” said Charlie Martin, chairman of Nashville-based Vanguard Health Systems, which owns the Baptist Health System in San Antonio.

The state demographer's office estimates that 27 percent of nonelderly adults in Bexar County lack health insurance, including 41 percent of Hispanics between 18 and 34. Most of them are from working families.

Martin donated $100,000 of his own money to open the San Antonio clinic. The Nashville clinic now has a $1 million annual budget, supported by grants, donations and patient fees, and it sees thousands of patients a year.

Services aren't free. Patients who qualify will be charged $10 to $50 a visit, depending on income and family size. They must be employed and not have private or government insurance. Residents of Bexar and surrounding counties are eligible.

“There are facilities that take care of those (covered) people,” Martin said. “But this would be a facility for working people, who have an income but who don't have insurance. That's obviously the group that is most challenged with how to get health care services.”

The clinic joins other safety net clinics in San Antonio, including several run by University Health System, the federally funded CommuniCare and CentroMed clinics, and the Wesley Health and Wellness Center, funded by Methodist Healthcare Ministries, which also is a sponsor of the Faith Family Clinic.

While the clinic has a small paid staff that includes an administrator, a nurse practitioner and a physician assistant, it must rely on a network of volunteer doctors to work. And organizers, who are approaching them through their churches, say several have signed on.

“There's not a place where a physician can volunteer in the community,” said Jim Young, the clinic's executive director. “They have to go to Mexico to do volunteer missions. This gives them a chance to do volunteer missions in their own backyard.”