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January 9, 2008

St. Nicholas Catches Those Falling Through the Health Care Cracks

		Anita Wyatt and Kimberly Settle in the pharmacy area where prescriptions are often filled before patients leave the clinic.
		Wyatt Relates – We All Can With the unaffordable cost of health care coverage, St. Nicholas Executive Director Anita Wyatt says she knows exactly what her patients are going through. “I used to be a single mom and had to buy my own health insurance, which was $400 a month,” Wyatt recalls. “My needs were on the back burner because I had to keep going to get my kids through school, pay rent and so forth. I know from personal experience that I would have had to drop it if it got much higher. “We’re talking about lower middle class people – even middle class people,” Wyatt adds. “Even if you have health insurance, one catastrophe can wipe you out financially.”

If you’ve ever paid a health insurance bill, your brain and bank account have felt some significant pain.

Imagine, though, if your annual income barely covers for your rent, food, car, gas and your children’s clothes, and that you’re ineligible for state or federal benefits.

So when uninsured working folks and their families get sick, where can they get help? The St. Nicholas Family Clinic.

Walk-Ins Welcome
Located at 1901 Kentucky Ave., the St. Nicholas clinic welcomes working folks in need to simply walk in – free of charge – and receive the care they need.

“This clinic was established in 1994 for hard-working people who make minimum wage or slightly above and often are trying to raise a family on that,” says the clinic’s amazing Executive Director Anita Wyatt. “There are a lot of people in our eight surrounding counties who earn $18,888 or less. They simply don’t have the resources to buy health insurance. We’re here to provide quality health care to this growing population.”

The process works something like this:

Come to the clinic at 10 a.m. on Tuesdays or Thursdays and pick up a number.
Be sure to bring two consecutive pay stubs as proof of employment.
Return to the clinic by 3:45 p.m., and you’ll be screened and informed of other helpful services.
Then you’ll be seen by a volunteer physician and a nurse practitioner.
Follow-up visits are scheduled for Wednesdays.

St. Nicholas Clinic Manager Vickie Morgan, Pharmacy Secretary Kimberly Settle, Executive Director Anita Wyatt, Nurse Practitioner Ann Mansfield, Office Manager Melinda Watson and Office Clerk Evelyn Cox. Not pictured: Pharmacist Ed Puschaver.

If that sounds more efficient than hanging around reading old magazines in your insurance-covered doctor’s waiting room, it is. “When you work in the non-profit world and offer a free – or almost free* – service, you have to streamline everything,” Wyatt says. “It has to run like a machine.”

The rockin’ Wyatt has run St. Nicholas for the past five years. A social worker by training, Wyatt writes grants, raises funds and does quite a bit of outreach and public speaking to raise awareness for the clinic.

Double the Patients, Double the Costs
Wyatt’s big win last year was forming a partnership with Lourdes and Western Baptist hospitals, resulting in a paid full-time nurse practitioner to help with the patient load. Thanks to the addition of Ann Mansfield RN, the clinic saw 1,881 people in 2007 – more than doubling the 848 patients seen in 2006.

“It’s been so great because before, when we ran short of volunteers, we’d have to close the clinic,” Wyatt says. “But now with Ann, we’re always open.”

Because so many folks on limited incomes put off seeing a doctor, by the time they decide to come to the clinic, their disease is in a later, more expensive and more difficult-to-treat stage.

St. Nicholas welcomes volunteers – no medical experience necessary. Gail LaGesse and Mary Herpel have been with the clinic almost from the beginning.

“We never know what we’re going to see from day to day,” Wyatt says. “Lately, we’ve seen lung cancer, liver failure – even tumors on the pancreas, which is very rare. Thanks to the due diligence of our employees and volunteers, we can uncover those things and get people the treatment they need. Our message is: Don’t wait. If you suspect something is wrong, come to us earlier rather than later.”

The benefits of seeing more patients, of course, results in the challenge of increased costs, especially in terms of filling twice as many prescriptions as before. “That’s OK,” Wyatt says. “We want to grow and help more people. We’ll meet these challenges, and certainly welcome more volunteers and donations.”

Returning the Favor: Volunteers and Donations
No doubt about it: The St. Nicholas Clinic provides a significant service to our community. It’s a service that we can easily repay through volunteerism and donations.

While doctors and nurses are always needed, non-medical volunteers can assist with clerical and office support, patient screening, information booth staffing, public speaking, fundraising and pharmacy work.

The Downtown Kiwanis Club raises money for the clinic during BBQ on the River. Here, club president Phillip Morgan presents Wyatt with an $8,246.09 check. The River Tin Street Rod Show group donated $5,100 to the clinic last year.

Gail LeGesse and Mary Herpel are longtime clinic volunteers. “The clinic fills an important niche for those who fall through the cracks,” says LeGesse, who helps with the clerical work.

Herpel, who secures food donations for the night volunteers, says the clinic is a key part of her life. “It’s just a wonderful service,” she says.

St. Nicolas is a United Way partner agency and accepts donations directly, as well. Share the love by making a donation online or by sending a check to St. Nicholas Family Clinic, 1901 Kentucky Ave., Paducah 42003.

“There’s an old saying: ‘The poorer, the sicker,’” Wyatt says. “We’re trying to change that.”

*All services are free whenever possible. Please check here for more details, along with a list of counties served.