By Jan Howard

A rising demand for health care services at the AmeriCares Free Clinics in Connecticut reflects a growing crisis across the United States. According to an AmeriCares representative, the crisis is caused by a flat economy, cutbacks in state sponsored programs, increased unemployment, and medical cost increases that have left more than 43.6 million people uninsured in this country.

According to an AmeriCares newsletter, with predictions of health care costs doubling over the next ten years, the outlook is grim.

“It’s our own disaster, and it’s getting worse,” Karen Gottlieb, AmeriCares executive director of the Free Clinic program, said recently.

She noted that because a large segment of the population is uninsured, everyone pays for uncompensated care through higher taxes and increased health insurance premiums.

Free clinics, such as those offered by AmeriCares in three Connecticut cities, are not a total answer to the problem, she said. “They are just one small thing a community can do. Hopefully there is a better answer.”

Because of the additional patients seeking medical help, AmeriCares is looking for ways to expand its services. It hopes to add a nurse practitioner, but to do so, “We need additional funding and volunteers,” Ms Gottlieb said.

Ms Gottlieb, Joan Petersen, vice president and director of development, and Deb Howard, community affairs director of AmeriCares’ free clinics, recently discussed updates in health services offered by the organization.

AmeriCares, a nonprofit disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization, which recently moved its headquarters from New Canaan to Stamford, provides immediate response to emergency medical and other related needs nationally and internationally and supports long-term healthcare programs for people around the world. Ms Gottlieb said a shipment from AmeriCares goes someplace every day.

Since AmeriCares’ founding in 1982, it has delivered more than $3.4 billion in aid to more than 137 nations worldwide. Over the past year, AmeriCares has responded with airlifts of emergency relief to many countries worldwide, including the fires in California and most recently to earthquake victims in Iran.

Ms Petersen said an assessment team left for Iran December 28, and a cargo plane that left December 30 included a doctor from Yale, an AmeriCares staff member, and medical and other supplies.

“As the relief effort continues, we will adapt to the needs as they change,” she said. “There will be more airlifts.” The organization, she notes, relies on its partners in other areas as to what response is required. “This allows us to be nimble and reactive,” she said.

In Connecticut, AmeriCares provides free clinics in Norwalk and Danbury, opened respectively in 1994 and 1997, and a 40-foot mobile medical van has been operating in Bridgeport since July while a more permanent rent-free facility is sought. The mobile medical unit was opened on June 26, 1999, in southeastern Connecticut.

“It’s a doctor’s office on wheels,” Ms Gottlieb said. It has the same capabilities as the two other clinics, she noted.

The clinics provide outpatient medical care, medicines, laboratory and diagnostic testing, and specialty care for the working poor and the uninsured. Danbury, Norwalk and Bridgeport hospitals, St Vincent’s Medical Center, and Quest Diagnostics also provide free services for the program.

Ms Gottlieb said Danbury Hospital has donated more than a million dollars in laboratory, radiology, and emergency room services. “The support has been very incredible,” she said.

Offering medications is especially important, she said. “It would be an exercise in futility not to include medications.” The majority of medications come from free samples donated by doctors. The clinics also receive medications through a Patients Assistance Program.

Each clinic is staffed by a full-time nurse director and an administrative assistant to follow up on diagnostic and laboratory tests. Five hundred volunteers serve the clinics, including many doctors, who help out once or twice a week.

Ms Gottlieb said when the clinic was first opened it treated people with episodic diseases, but now sees patients with more serious illnesses, such as cancer and diabetes. “Now we’re seeing people with multiple problems,” she noted, with some taking multiple medications.

The Danbury clinic has delivered more than $3 million in health care since it was established in 1996. It also receives a full range of laboratory, diagnostic, and consultative services at no cost to the patient through Danbury Radiology Associates, Danbury Office of Physician Services, and community-based specialists.

Ms Gottlieb said the City of Danbury has been supportive financially and also supplies a caseworker to offer social services information. AmeriCares also receives rent-free space, including all utilities except telephone, in Ives Manor from the Danbury Housing Authority.

The Danbury clinic is open for adults only as walk-ins on Wednesday from 4 to 7 pm and Saturday, from 9 am to noon. It is also open Thursday for some walk-in patients from 9 am to noon.

The clinic recently began a Continuity Clinic on Tuesday and Thursday for appointments only. It also offers a diabetes clinic on Tuesday nights for medical care and education.

AmeriCares hopes to extend additional hours for walk-ins and to add another clinic session once additional funding is available.

“We have opened our first outside the United States health care facility in El Salvador,” Ms Gottlieb said. It has been equipped with a laboratory and mammography, ultrasound, and x-ray machines. It also offers dental and ob/gyn services.

“It’s very impressive,” Ms Petersen said.

Though AmeriCares responds to disasters, such as the earthquake in Iran, disaster relief amounts to only 30 percent of its activity. The balance encompasses shipments of essential drugs, medicines, and medical supplies to ongoing health care programs worldwide.

It receives donations of medicines, medical supplies, and other relief materials from pharmaceutical companies as well as other corporations. Two warehouses in the United States and one in Europe store materials and make them available for immediate shipment. The warehouses are constantly being restocked with products.

AmeriCares is a privately funded through individuals, corporations, and foundations. Over the years, more than 1,000 corporate donors have partnered with AmeriCares to provide medicines, vitamins, surgical and hospital equipment, blankets, milk products, food, disaster relief supplies, water purifiers, tents, vaccines, and diapers.

The three AmeriCares representatives stressed additional volunteers are needed to increase medical care services at its clinics. Nurses, physicians, screeners, and translators are needed at the Danbury clinic as well as specialists in all areas who would be willing to see AmeriCares patients in their offices at no charge. Specialists can designate how many patients he or she would be willing to see on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. The organization also needs administrative volunteers in its Stamford office.

To volunteer with or donate to AmeriCares, call 800-486-HELP or Joan Petersen at 203-658-9500. AmeriCares can be reached on the Internet at www.americares.org.