Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 25, 1992 TAG: 9202250266
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GERALD W. ROLLER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
NORTHWEST AREA NOT MEDICALLY UNDERSERVED; MANY FACILITIES IN REACH
THIS REFERS to the headline Jan. 24, "38,000 lack health care in the Roanoke area."The area outlined in the article by Charles Hite is one of several in our city that need attention. To say that 38,000 people lack health care in this area, out of a total of 98,000, is not true. Before we as a city and a community agree to have taxpayer funding for a community health center, additional factors need to be considered.
Physicians' services are only one of many not available to persons living there. Branch banks, drugstores, grocery stores, restaurants, shopping malls and city transportation all are in short supply. Churches are about all that are apparently adequate in number.
From my own experience, I thought the following bits of information might be of interest.
A number of years ago, our office staffed a medical clinic for the City Health Department in Burrell Hospital. This closed when clientele failed to support the effort and it was no longer feasible for us to spend one-half day seeing three or four patients.
Our office has been unable over the years to recruit a black physician as a partner. We had thought if we could, it might enable us to serve even more persons in the Northwest area.
If one considers the area marked as lacking health care as a pie, then places offices of physicians in practice in Roanoke on the periphery, one can see that this area is served by several such offices. Examples are at 1314 Peters Creek Road, 367 Hershberger Road, 2900 Peters Creek Road, the Lewis-Gale Clinic at Valley View Mall, 7000 Peters Creek Road NW, 5221 Airport Road NW, and 5501 Williamson Road NW. There are physicians located on U.S. 460 East and in Vinton, not far from the eastern border. Community Hospital and numerous physicians in the Old Southwest area are available. My own office is less than two miles from the center of the area.
When Dr. Remson closed his office, our office purchased the active charts of his patients. We also agreed to store charts of any other patients he had not seen in the past two years. We have thus helped a number of patients continue their care at our office, or through transferring their charts to other physicians as they desired.
The number of charts received, dating from 1984 to 1990, leads me to conclude that it is a gross exaggeration to say that he was "swamped with patients." I had offered to take some night calls for Dr. Remson, and to cover for him during vacation or needed time to take a break. He did not avail himself of this offer.
Dr. Remson had attempted to get the area designated federally as underserved, and I opposed this for the same reason that I oppose such designation now. In my opinion, a large percentage of the 38,000 persons listed as living in the area do not lack health care.
No doubt, there are persons in the area who are inconvenienced by not having a medical facility present; and there are other persons, the elderly and disadvantaged, without proper transportation who have difficulty obtaining health care. I think these same 38,000 people can get to the grocery stores and the shopping malls when they need to, and can avail themselves of medical care in like manner. While it would be nice to have medical facilities that one can walk to, many areas in the Roanoke Valley are inaccessible in this manner, such as Hunting Hills and Oak Grove.
Carilion Health System is building a facility on Peters Creek Road somewhat similar to its facility on Brambleton Avenue. In this structure will be family-practice physicians (perhaps as many as 10). If Carilion is truly interested in serving, they could fund a similar project in the center of this Northwest area or move the planned facility here.
Federal funding to subsidize a health-care clinic, while seemingly very noble and easy money, is after all derived from the taxpayers of the community and the nation. A subsidized unit would directly compete with existing physicians.
It is extremely rare for such a facility to pay its own way and, once in place, extremely difficult to cease its funding. I believe a better use of taxpayers' money might go to the establishment of smaller clinics at Melrose Towers, housing projects and a local church facility or an unused building. Educational efforts could be given at multiple locations.
In our community, the "not for profit" Carilion Health Care System is, through its use of numerous subsidiaries and subsidies, competing with private health-care facilities such as Lewis-Gale Clinic, Lewis-Gale Hospital, independent physicians and clinics. It is not necessary for federal funding to subsidize establishment of a health-care facility in the area to further this competition.
There are more than 400 member physicians of the Roanoke Academy of Medicine, yet no indication of this organization having any input in this discussion was mentioned in the article. In addition, representatives of the Lewis-Gale Hospital and Clinic should certainly be a part of any consideration.
While there are multiple problems, the solution does not, in my opinion, rest with the development of a federally subsidized Northeast Community Health Center.
Gerald W. Roller has been practicing internal medicine in Roanoke about 30 years.