Local clinic depends on volunteer doctors, nurses Local clinic depends on volunteer doctors, nurses (November 26, 2004)

Retired health care workers tend to low-income patients

By Roseanne G. Pereira

"The call went out for volunteers, and I raised my hand. That was in 1995," said RotaCare Free Clinic volunteer Lou Wagner.

RotaCare, one of five local nonprofits being supported this year by the Voice Holiday Fund drive, is a clinic for low-income patients that thrives on the spirit of volunteerism demonstrated by its nurses, doctors, and translators. Wagner, one of the original volunteers for RotaCare, is still hard at work as one of the clinic's two pharmacists.

The Mountain View RotaCare clinic was opened in 1996 by the Rotary Club and relocated last year from Castro Street to the YMCA building on Grant Road, where it sees patients two nights a week.

Cheryl Canning, the clinical services director, thinks that the reason volunteers stay with the organization is because she and the rest of the RotaCare staff have created a place where "time is valued and skills are valued. As soon as volunteers walk in the door, everyone is moving fast and working hard."

Doctors come into the clinic and are immediately greeted and paired with a nurse and translator. Each night the clinic is open, volunteers are treated to a hot dinner donated by area restaurants.

Patients make appointments in advance, and each doctor sees eight to 10 patients every Monday and Wednesday evening the clinic is open. Special flow charts are created for patients that allow one volunteer doctor to pick up where another left off. Such precise documentation from the full-time staff allows for the continuity of treatment that is essential to good health care.

People come to the clinic for a variety of reasons: counseling, follow-up to ER visits, removing stitches, reviewing lab work, check-ups and preventative care. The clinic, where over 60 percent of patients are Mountain View residents, has a largely Hispanic population. Among this demographic, the most common condition doctors at RotaCare see is Type II diabetes, followed by heart disease and hypertension, and asthma.

For retired Dr. Dexter Hake, RotaCare has also been a place to keep engaged with the field of medicine.

"I've always enjoyed medicine. This gives me a way to keep practicing," said Hake, a volunteer at the clinic for over seven years.

Doctors work with patients to teach them how to self-manage their own health. According to Canning, some patients might come into the clinic looking for a quick fix, but instead they learn about the long-term commitment they have to make to their own care.

What links all types of volunteers is the belief that "anyone who's ill deserves to find care," said Canning. As soon as volunteers walk through the door and see patients crowding the waiting room, they know how much their skills are needed to put action behind that belief.

As pharmacist Wagner explained, "If people haven't volunteered, it's a hard sell to explain why they should. If people have volunteered, no explanation is necessary."

"This kind of volunteerism is not shelving books in the library. It's using some of what I know to help fellow human beings," he added. "There's no higher calling than that."
@email:E-mail Roseanne G. Pereira at rpereira@mv-voice.com

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