Free clinic in St. Charles hits 2,000-patient mark
Shannon Watson knows what comes to mind when most people think about a free clinic. And everyday she works at the Tri City Health Partnership in St. Charles, she knows that image is wrong.
Her free health clinic isn't in a rundown building. It's a renovated home. There isn't a cluster of illegal immigrants in the waiting room. Roughly 70 percent of the patients the clinic sees are white residents of St. Charles, Geneva, Elburn and Batavia who are out of work, underinsured, or working but not insured.
These are patients who are delaying medical care because they can only afford to send their children to the doctor. Or they are the 19-year-olds who chose work instead of college and didn't realize they weren't covered by their parents' insurance until they need an appendix removed. Or they're not quite old enough for Medicare, or don't quite qualify for Medicaid and find themselves sharing a loved one's medication.
That is the single most important thing Watson wants people to know about her clinic. The vast majority of patients are people who would normally be embarrassed to admit they needed free help, she said. The truth is, there's nothing embarrassing about it, Watson added. When people get over that, the clinic will finally reach all the patients it would like to.
The Tri City Health Partnership recently marked service to its 2,000th unique patient while only on the cusp of its seventh year in existence. Last year alone, 526 patients came to the clinic for more than 1,700 visits total. The clinic provides services with help from doctors who donate time and Delnor-Community Hospital in Geneva. There are no government subsidies in the clinic's budget, only grants and donated financing from local community foundations and donated services, such as free landscaping.
"In a world where everybody says there's nothing for free, this is free," Watson said. "The heart of this operation is what local people want to give back to the local community. I've lived in the Lisle/Naperville area for the last 30 years, and honestly, I cannot image my community doing what they're doing in St. Charles."
The clinic is seeing an uptick of patients in the last two years as the economy slows. That puts the clinic in an awkward spot. In tough economic times, charitable contributions tend to wane, but the need for the services grows. Watson said she can see a time when the clinic might have some financial trouble, but it's not here yet. Instead, the clinic is focusing on newly booming health needs.
"Diabetes, hypertension and asthma, those are three conditions we see blowing off the chart," Watson said.
When money is tight, people don't watch what they eat because they are just looking to have enough food to sustain themselves, Watson explained. That leads to gaining weight and some health problems follow.
Those needs aside, Watson said the biggest need the clinic has for the future is more volunteer doctors and nurses to help with the increasing patient load, and dentists. The clinic typically receives three calls a day from people needing dental care, but there is only one local dentist who donates time to the clinic.
Watson said she knows the community will fill the clinic's needs as they arise. In seven years, the clinic has never operated in the red, nor turned away anyone in its service area in need of care.
"We truly feel that there is some guardian angel hanging over our clinic," Watson said.