RotaCare finds a new home RotaCare finds a new home (December 26, 2003)

Free medical clinic is only option for many Silicon Valley workers

By Julie O'Shea

Down the labyrinth hallways of the El Camino YMCA basement floor, Mountain View RotaCare Clinic, which provides free primary health services to the working poor, has finally found a permanent home.

Started in 1996, RotaCare, one of the six local nonprofits being support this year by the Voice Holiday Fund drive, had been bumped from location to location until the El Camino Hospital Foundation board agreed to let the RotaCare move in next to the YMCA, so long as the nonprofit raised the funds needed to remodel the space into a clinic.

The funds were raised, and RotaCare moved into its new home in May. The space includes four exam rooms, an immunization room, a counseling room, a large waiting area and office cubicles for RotaCare staff.

"This has been a tremendous year," said clinical services director Cheryl Canning. "I'm overwhelmed by it, because there were many years that were really lean.

"This is a very hard job," Canning added. "But it makes it easier with the support from the community."

RotaCare was founded in 1989 by a Rotary Club member in Santa Clara. It was born out of a need to provide medical services at no cost to those most in need, but who have the least access to care and no insurance. There are currently nine RotaCare clinics in Northern California.

"We do not refuse services to anyone," Canning said. "From the very beginning of this clinic, we've had a number of persons that sought us out."

Mountain View has "a large number of people in the service industry," Canning said. "They are working hard and contributing to the economy, to the community, ... but they need rudimentary health care."

This year alone, the clinic -- which has a team of 32 doctors who volunteer their services at least once a month -- saw 4,700 patients, 70 percent of whom are Mountain View residents, and gave immunization shots to 1,400.

The average patient, according to Canning, is male, between the age of 27 and 31, married and a family man, making less than $1,500 a month. Canning added that RotaCare has seen "quite an increase" recently in laid-off Silicon Valley workers who have never had to use a free clinic before.

"It's very hard on them," Canning said. "They are very embarrassed."

Dr. Alan Greenwald, a retired dermatologist, has been volunteering at the Grant Road clinic for a little more than a year, and says he likes spending time there, despite the days that he sometimes sees 15 patients.

"Everyone in the world has a story to tell, and as a physician, I get to hear their stories," said Greenwald, a Palo Alto resident, who ran a private practice in San Jose up until five years ago.

Greenwald, like so many other of the clinic's volunteer doctors, first heard about RotaCare through a friend, who thought Greenwald would fit right in.

"I like the idea of a free clinic," Greenwald said. "I think it is a fantastic service.

"What the clinic needs is more interested volunteers," Greenwald added.
@email:E-mail Julie O'Shea at joshea@mv-voice.com

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