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A medical safety net for the uninsured Photo by Roy Musitelli Chris Moore By JONEL ALECCIA Mail Tribune Chris Moore knows now that denial is the world's worst health-care plan, but for years, the 55-year-old Central Point woman simply pretended her medical problems didn't exist. She ignored cellulitis, a potentially serious skin disorder. She stopped taking expensive high blood pressure medication when the prescription ran out. She ignored persistent pain until doctors opened her abdomen and found a 14-pound tumor the size of a soccer ball. Volunteers to raise funds The Community Health Center today is launching a volunteer-driven campaign to raise $100,000 of an overall $175,000 goal to fund operating expenses for three clinics sites in Medford, Ashland and White City. The funds are necessary to continue care, said director Peg Crowley. They are in addition to funds for capital improvements, such as the purchase of the center site at 19 Myrtle St., Medford. The health center got a scare last spring when owners of the leased space decided to sell, Crowley said. But negotiations yielded a purchase-option plan that allows the center to renovate and buy the buildings for $700,000, well below market value. A $350,000 challenge grant was recently awarded by the Meyer Memorial Trust in Portland; now, it's up to clinic staff and supporters to raise the rest. Before that happens, however, Crowley said public support for basic services to serve vulnerable and low-income clients is critical. For information, contact clinic sites at 482-9741 in Ashland, 773-3863 in Medford and 826-5853 in White City. Donations can be mailed to 99 Central Ave., Medford. It wasn't that Moore wanted to be sick. It's just that she couldn't afford the costs of getting well. "You learn to ignore things because if you don't have the money to do it, you can't," says Moore, who lives on her husband's earnings as a mechanic at a local golf course. The pair have no insurance because they can't afford the $200 monthly premium. Today, however, Moore is on her way to better health, thanks to a doctor who recognized her financial need and referred her to the Community Health Center, one of Southern Oregon's medical safety nets for the uninsured. For the past four years, Moore has received subsidized care for medical conditions ranging from high blood pressure management to breast biopsies and surgery, including a hysterectomy. She's one of more than 7,400 clients who logged 23,000 medical encounters at three clinic sites in Medford, Ashland and White City during 2001, director Peg Crowley says. And Moore is one of the reasons the center is launching a $100,000 public fund drive today to keep the 30-year-old program going. "We're at the point where the discussion is, 'Do we grow, or do we close for new patients?'" says Crowley, who has run the Community Health Center since 1987. Every month, more than 300 new patients just like Moore - medically needy, financially strapped - show up at the doors of the three clinics. Every month, more than 125 requests for help are turned away for lack of resources, Crowley says. "There are days when we definitely feel overwhelmed," she says. The size of public contributions will largely determine whether the center reduces eligibility further, says Crowley. As public and private resources have dwindled in an economy reeling from recession and post-Sept. 11 donation declines, the Community Health Center has limited services to the most needy clients. "The issue is, how do you say no to the children?" says Crowley, noting that 40 percent of services already go to people under age 19. "We have to keep centering, centering, centering." The center's $2.2 million annual budget must stretch to accommodate growing need, even with in-kind donations of time, space, materials and services from some 200 area doctors and three Jackson County hospitals, Crowley says. At the same time, about 65 percent of clinic costs are funded by patients, who must pay something, however small, at every visit. Doctors such as John Forsythe, a Medford cardiologist who also serves on the center's board of directors, say they volunteer time to help stem the unmet need for medical care. More than 10 percent of Jackson County residents are without health insurance, better than the overall Oregon rate of nearly 14 percent, state figures show. That's down by more than half from uninsured rates in the early 1990s, thanks in large part to the Oregon Health Plan. But in human terms, it's still staggering, Forsythe says. "I've been aware for a long time how scary it is not to have access to medical care when you need it," Forsythe says. For Chris Moore, being free from both pain and worry about medical expenses has improved her quality of life. She's chipping away at her Community Health Center bill, which now amounts to $200, but Moore says she wishes she could repay as much as she's received. "One of my dreams is, if I ever come into money, that I would buy the things to make the work at the Community Health Center easier," Moore says. "Without them, I have a feeling I wouldn't be here." Reach reporter JoNel Aleccia at 776-4465, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.