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HOME > ABOUT > PRESS > COMMUNICARE HEALTHY AT 35
Article published - August 31, 2007
Credit: Davis Enterprise
CommuniCare healthy at 35
By Sharon Stello
Enterprise staff writer
Woodland resident Eva Hurtado had health insurance for 28 years until her employer, a seasonal cannery, decided to no longer offer the benefit.
It was a scary situation for Hurtado, 56, who suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure. She could not afford healthcare and didn't go to the doctor until her condition reached a critical point.
Hurtado said her eyes began hemorrhaging - blood could be seen flowing inside her eyes - due to high blood sugar. A friend suggested she go to Peterson Clinic in Woodland.
“I never realized a program like that existed,” Hurtado said.
The clinic is part of CommuniCare Health Centers, which provides affordable medical care to low-income residents in Yolo
County and celebrates its 35th anniversary next month.
Hurtado found this health system when she needed it most. She was impressed with the clinic in the old yellow building that once housed the general hospital where she was born.
“They were real good. They immediately took me,” Hurtado said.
She had been going to the clinic for about a year when a doctor convinced her to serve on CommuniCare's board. The majority of board members are patients served by the organization. Hurtado said the experience has been worthwhile.
“You learn a lot. You learn how things come about,” she said.
Now, she encourages others to visit CommuniCare's clinics.
“A lot of people, when they don't have medical coverage, they're actually afraid to step forward. I was too, but it's worth trying for your family and yourself. Your health is what's important,” she said.
Serving the community
CommuniCare started in 1972 with the Davis Free Clinic and has grown into a private, nonprofit healthcare organization with seven clinics in the county.
Robin Affrime, executive director of CommuniCare, started as a volunteer 25 years ago. Then, the Davis Free Clinic had 10,000 patient visits per year. Today, CommuniCare has 80,000 patient visits. The number of individual patients has risen from 1,200 to 20,000 annually.
“It's grown exponentially over the years that I've been here,” Affrime said.
Dr. David Katz, medical director of CommuniCare, said the organization provides an invaluable service for the poor and uninsured.
“A lot of counties don't have a community clinic like CommuniCare,” Katz said. “To me, that's like having gold underneath the surface of the soil. It's a real resource.”
CommuniCare offers a long list of services including medical, dental, vision, perinatal, pediatric, women's health, mental health, substance abuse treatment and health coverage application assistance. The organization provides health and nutrition education in local schools as well as prenatal care and substance abuse programs at Yolo County Jail.
Children receive dental screenings, oral education, sealants and referrals for other dental work through CommuniCare's Smile Saver program in elementary and preschools with more than half of students eligible for free lunches.
A teen program focuses on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases. The counselors - young adults who easily connect with the teens - speak in the schools and serve as role models. They're available long after the presentations are done, if students have questions or need advice.
As part of CommuniCare's perinatal service, mothers-to-be earn points for attending medical appointments and health education classes. The points can be redeemed for clothing and baby supplies in the Stork's Nest shop. And all new moms receive free car seats.
“There are just so many different ways we affect the lives of people in the community,” Katz said.
Humble beginnings
Dr. John H. Jones, who worked at the UC Davis Cowell Student Health Center and volunteered at San Francisco's Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, recognized the need for a free medical clinic in Davis. He gathered a small group of volunteers and opened the Davis Free Clinic at the Friends Meeting House on L Street.
Here, they served “a growing transient population of addicts and street people who had little or no income, no health insurance and no social support to help them handle their urgent and chronic health problems,” according to a history of the clinic.
The clinic provided “a place for the poor and uninsured to get the non-emergency general medical services they needed in a supportive, non-judgmental environment.” Jones also visited farm labor camps and hippie encampments using a converted milk-delivery truck as a traveling clinic. As the area's population grew and needs changed, services expanded.
The Davis Community Clinic, as it's now called, moved into larger quarters by 1985. The rented house at Fourth and E streets was large enough to accommodate 10,000 patient visits per year.
The clinic outgrew its building again in 1996 when patient visits increased to more than 30,000 per year. Community donations funded construction of a new building at 2040 Sutter Place - now John Jones Road - in Davis. It opened in 1997, the 25th anniversary of the Davis Free Clinic.
Branching out
Through the years, the organization began serving other parts of the county.
In 1994, Davis Community Clinic joined with Sutter Davis Hospital, Sutter West Medical Group and the Yolo County Health Department to form the Yolo Health Alliance. In the process, Davis Community Clinic assumed management of Salud Clinic (part of the county's health system) in West Sacramento and Peterson Clinic (the former county hospital) in Woodland.
The organization adopted the name CommuniCare Health Centers and became “the front door of the safety net of health care services for the low-income, uninsured and underinsured residents of Yolo County.”
In addition to the Davis Community Clinic, Peterson Clinic in Woodland and Salud Clinic in West Sacramento, CommuniCare also includes Knights Landing Clinic, Esparto Dental Clinic and the John H. Jones Community Clinics for substance abuse treatment in Woodland and West Sacramento.
CommuniCare recently became a Federally Qualified Health Center, which comes with a $650,000 annual grant to help the organization reach more people.
“We're excited about that because we want to expand services,” Affrime said.
The health network plans to increase outreach to the migrant worker population and increase care to an additional 3,750 people over two years. Some of the funding may help add mental health workers in primary care clinics.
Mission driven
CommuniCare has an annual budget of $11 million overseen by a 15-member board, which has three vacant seats. A majority of board members must be CommuniCare patients.
CommuniCare receives donations from individuals, service clubs and businesses. There are reimbursements from Medicare, Medi-Cal and county health coverage plans. Uninsured patients pay on a sliding scale based on family size and income.
By providing low-cost primary care, CommuniCare aims to prevent greater medical expenses down the line. If an illness or injury is treated early on, perhaps the patient won't need to visit the hospital emergency room. This saves the hospitals money as well as the government, which subsidizes indigent health care.
Affrime, the executive director, said CommuniCare is a committed group of about 200 employees and more than 250 volunteers working toward a common goal: making sure people get quality healthcare.
“I like the fact that we really are a mission-driven organization,” Affrime said. “When I come to work every day, I know that we're helping people Š it's an essential service.”
CommuniCare prides itself on cultural diversity. Its workers not only speak a variety of languages - from Spanish to Russian, Pakistani and Punjabi - but also understand cultural differences that affect medical care and require sensitivity.
“We also do an enormous amount of teaching here,” Affrime said.
CommuniCare is affiliated with the UCD Medical Center and other teaching institutions, bringing in residents as well as nurse practitioners and physician assistants in training, pre-dental students and counseling interns.
A rewarding job
Katz, the medical director, came to CommuniCare in 1997 from an HMO in Sacramento.
“CommuniCare really was trying to serve a population that I thought needed service,” said Katz, who admired the organization's ability to acquire resources needed to provide that service.
He liked that CommuniCare not only treated illness and injury, but also provided preventive care such as breast cancer screenings and prenatal care.
“I felt I could do my job in this environment,” said Katz, who was the primary physician at the Salud Clinic in West Sacramento before coming to the Davis Community Clinic.
Katz said working at an HMO was frustrating because he constantly had to juggle the best interest of the patients with the financial interests of the HMO as he decided what medicines to prescribe and what lab tests to order.
“I just felt torn between two conflicting sets of goals - this financial goal of the for-profit company and the wish of my patients,” he said. “At CommuniCare, they're parallel goals, they're in sync with each other.”
Katz recalls the gratitude of one patient, a man he first met at Sutter Davis Hospital. He treated the man, a heroin addict, for an infected heart valve caused by using a dirty needle.
Katz recommended that the man come to the clinic for further treatment, but the man didn't follow through and kept returning to the hospital with the same problem. Finally, Katz told the man that he seemed like a smart guy, but he was making some really bad decisions that were affecting his health.
About two years later, the man showed up in the waiting room with a birthday card for Katz.
“I thought, ‘That's kind of strange, it's not my birthday,' ” Katz said.
Then he opened the card. It said “Thanks for letting me get to this birthday.” Apparently, Katz's encouragement pushed him in the right direction. The man had secured a job and become a leader in a narcotics anonymous group.
That experience made the clinic's importance clear to Katz.
“Even if that's one in 100. That's a full human life that's now productive,” Katz said. “That really impressed me.”
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