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Thursday, February 28, 2008
Clinic treats those who fall through health care net
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He spent 19 months as a flight surgeon during the war in Vietnam.
Today, Bill Martin applies what he learned practicing medicine in the Southeast Asian country to the clinic he runs near First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville.
“When you have a patient in front of you - North Vietnamese, South Vietnamese, illegal immigrant or legal immigrant - it doesn’t matter,” the doctor said. “You just take care of the patient.”
Martin founded the Hope Clinic six years ago to care for the uninsured, under-insured and indigent. Referrals take many avenues. Patients find their way to his office after treatment in emergency rooms or public health offices.
Patients suffer with diabetes, cardiac disease, high cholesterol and hypertension. Some can pay. Many can’t; they get a discount. The difference is made up by donors. Supporters, though, wonder how long the clinic can continue.
On Wednesday, The Badie Tour stopped by Hope to talk to staff and volunteers about local primary health care. It mirrors what you’d find in Anywhere U.S.A.: Insurance companies are slow to pay claims or cover only certain conditions. People are under-insured or uninsured. Hospital emergency rooms become ad hoc providers.
“There are so many problems, but lack of care of the uninsured is a big issue,” Martin, 66, told me during a quick break between seeing patients. “If patients don’t have insurance, and they are charged exorbitant costs for preventive care, they don’t see a doctor. When they start feeling bad, they are already in trouble, so they show up at the emergency room with [sky-high] blood pressure.”
He sees about 20 to 22 patients a day and could treat more if he weren’t treating people with severe issues. The clinic sees walk-ins from 7:30 to 10 a.m. on weekdays, but recently has turned new patients away because of backlogs.
Some patients followed Martin to the nonprofit after he closed his private practice. John Mitchell, who serves on the Hope board of directors, is one of them. He worries about money to run the nonprofit. The charity received nearly $70,000 in grants last year; the goal in 2008 is to raise nearly $600,000.
“The clinic has been running hand to mouth, so to speak,” he said. “Martin is a throwback to that old-school doctor. His primary concern is taking care of patients. This has always been his dream - to have clinics available. We’d like to have five across the county.”
While the health care industry needs reform, Martin said the answer isn’t solely in universal health care - at least in the forms that have been proposed.
“Everybody needs to know that if we don’t do something about the uninsured problem, it’s going to take the system down,” he said. “This type of clinic needs to be a community clinic because this is a community problem. This model, in my opinion, is a step in the right direction.”
For more information about the Hope Clinic, call 770-685-1300.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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