|
|||||||||
 | |||||||||
 Built from donations: Over 100 professionals around Salt Lake County help some of the 300,000 uninsured Utahns A woman dies of pneumonia that a simple dose of antibiotics would have cured. A 27-year-old man waits too long to seek medical help for easily diagnosable cancer symptoms. Diabetics lose limbs to untreated infections. Such tales of needless human suffering are encountered daily by emergency room doctors, nurses and technicians - not in some emerging country, but in middle America. They are the stories driving some of the more than 100 medical professionals around Salt Lake County to donate their time and talents at a new free health clinic for the uninsured. Built from foundation and corporate donations, the Maliheh Free Clinic, 415 E. and 3900 South, celebrated its grand opening on Thursday. On hand for the ceremony were Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., legislators, philanthropists, business leaders and volunteers who conducted tours of the outpatient medical facility. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, Utah's former governor, even sent a staffer to praise the effort and relay a message that "societies prosper not by the grace of governments, but by continuing cycles of goodness, generated by the people themselves." The plight of the growing number of uninsured has been at the center of debate over health care reform at federal and state levels. In Utah, their ranks have grown to 300,000. Experts agree that a major overhaul of the health care system is needed to solve the problem, but admit sweeping changes are a distant dream. So in Utah, as in other states, policy-makers have focused on efforts to promote charity care. The Maliheh clinic - pronounced Muh-LEE-ah - is one of four charity clinics in Salt Lake County. While others cater to the homeless or poorest of the poor, this clinic is designed to serve the working poor - those who earn slightly more than $20,000 for a family of four. "No one will be turned away. But we're really here for the people who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to buy private insurance," said Mansoor Emam, the clinic's medical director. Emam spent his formative years in Dezful, an impoverished city in southern Iran virtually without medical services. He came to Utah as a teenager to attend school, become a doctor and realize his "lifelong dream" of aiding the sick and poor. But he didn't need to return to his homeland for that. An American citizen, internist and emergency physician working for Intermountain Health Care, Emam needs only look as far as his back yard. In Salt Lake County alone, 9.9 percent - about 85,000 people - are without health coverage. Of that group, 72 percent are under 34 years of age, about 43 percent work full time and 20 percent work part time. Of course we won't be able to help everybody," says Emam, who expects the seven-exam-room clinic and volunteer staff to accommodate 100 to 150 patients a year. But a sign of the pent-up demand for the clinic's services are the half-dozen patients, including children, whom Emam treated while the facility was still under construction. "They saw the sign and asked for help," said Emam. To get the clinic online took the good will of many, primarily the Semnani Foundation, which is keeping the operation afloat its first year and covering an estimated half-million dollars in supplies, drugs and utilities. The clinic is named after the grandmother of the foundation's benefactor, Khosrow Semnani. Maliheh is Persian and means "comfort and beauty," said Semnani, founder of the radioactive-waste disposal company Envirocare of Utah. Other businesses and foundations pitched in to refurbish and furnish the facility, and more help is needed, said foundation director John Pingree, former director of the Utah Transit Authority. "We want others to contribute so we can invest in building more clinics in other parts of the state. When we start seeing patients coming in large numbers from certain employers, we can go to them and say, 'We've taken care of X number of people. We're helping you out. Will you help us?' " Clinic supporters say the cost of letting the uninsured go untreated falls to everyone. Poor health care spells lost productivity as people with untreated illnesses spread disease in schools, the workplace and community. And when untreated conditions become worse, they require more heroic, life-saving measures, said Jan Chase, an ER nurse and volunteer. "Probably 60 percent of the patients I see at IHC are uninsured. You treat them knowing most won't come back for follow-up visits or take their meds," said Chase. "They have more immediate things to pay for, like food and rent." kstewart@sltrib.com Free clinic now open |
| ||||||||
