ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 18, 1996 TAG: 9608190082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
BRADLEY FREE CLINIC has been deluged with calls from people wanting to start clinics.
A 76-year-old woman suffering from Parkinson's disease wrote that she hopes she has "enough fire left" to get a free clinic going in her community of Glen Head, N.Y.
Farm Workers Self-Help Inc. in Dade City, Fla., has a similar goal.
So does First Baptist Church of Rosebud, Ark.
And the Rotary Club in San Diego. And a husband and wife physician team in Weymouth, Mass.
Each has requested a copy of the "How To Start a Free Clinic" manual written by the staff of Bradley Free Clinic in Roanoke and distributed by the Free Clinic Foundation of America.
The foundation is the other phone line at the clinic, where many of the Roanoke Valley's working poor go for medical care.
In its 22 years of existence, Bradley Free Clinic has quietly established itself as a national model of how a community can meet the health needs of people who have jobs but no health insurance. As part of its outreach, the foundation distributes the how-to manual and a list of free clinics in the country.
Requests usually trickle in at a manageable pace - except in the past three weeks, since a Parade magazine story on the Biddeford Free Clinic in Maine.
Parade is a feature tabloid included in the Sunday editions of many of the nation's newspapers, including The Roanoke Times. On July 21, it told how the residents of Biddeford, population 21,000, started a free clinic.
An italicized paragraph at the end of the story said readers could obtain the listing of free clinics and information on how to start one by writing The Free Clinic Foundation of America at Dept. P, 1240 Third St. S.W., Roanoke, Va.
As of last week, more than 1,000 pieces of mail had arrived at Bradley as a result of the Parade story.
"The first thing I did when I saw Parade was to ask: `Whose desk is Dept. P?''' said Debbie Jordan, assistant director at Bradley.
Jordan is one of only five paid staffers at the clinic, but it has 550 volunteers.
Last year, Bradley Free Clinic saw 11,000 patients and handed out 19,000 medications, said Executive Director Estelle Nichols Avner.
Avner came to the clinic as a volunteer, then was named its first and only director. Other clinic leaders have had similar stick-to-itiveness. Dr. John Garvin, president of the clinic board, was one of the original volunteers, as was Dr. Richard Surrusco, who is medical director for primary care for Carilion Health System.
Dr. Kevin Kelleher, the clinic's volunteer chairman for clinic services, was tapped as a helper 14 years ago while he was a medical resident at what was then Roanoke Memorial Hospital. He now is a family practice physician with Lewis-Gale Clinic in Salem.
"Once you're here, you're hooked," Kelleher said at the free clinic last week while he sorted through a stack of mail from physicians who saw the Parade story.
Many doctors who volunteered at the Roanoke clinic but have since left town still send donations, he said.
About 90 physicians, a fourth of those in the area, now volunteer at the clinic, along with 45 dentists and 50 pharmacists. Forty other doctors see patients referred by the clinic. An army of nurses, lab technicians and other medical professionals serves as support staff.
The Bradley group established the Free Clinic Foundation in 1990 as a way to share its success story with other communities.
This recent appeal for help from other communities was the biggest one-time response for the foundation since 1991, when more than 300 doctors wrote Kelleher after he related the clinic's success in an article for the Journal of the American Medical Association.
JAMA ran a series of 30 articles on physicians' solutions to the health care crisis, including the rising cost of health care and the dilemma of the uninsured.
"Ours was the only one that went anywhere," Kelleher said.
His article spawned 50 new clinics.
One clinic usually gives birth to more clinics in its area. The Roanoke facility used to draw patients from the New Valley Valley on one side and Bedford and Franklin counties on the other. So it started clinics in New River, Bedford and Rocky Mount.
Kelleher was an adviser for the first free clinic in Illinois, in Joliet. That clinic then inspired five other clinics. Now there are 19 clinics in Illinois.
"It's like having grandchildren," the physician said.
"If the political climate is right, it takes off. I have helped get a clinic started in two and a half months," Kelleher said.
The best selling point for getting a clinic going is its clientele, Kelleher said. Volunteers are willing to work for people who are trying.
"That's important to physicians. We've worked hard to get here; we expect our patients to work hard," he said.
Although the clinic receives money from the three Roanoke Valley governments and through United Way donations, the bulk of its $350,000 budget comes from private donations, many at $10 each, Avner said.
The free care it gives is worth more than $1 million annually, she said.
Bradley Free Clinic has not sought state or federal funding because it didn't want the restrictions that might come with such money. However, for four years now, the clinic has received a substantial donation from Trigon Blue Cross Blue Shield: $25,000 the first three years, and $20,000 this year.
The decrease is a result of an increase in free clinics in the state, Avner said. The hundreds of letters and cards that recently arrived in Roanoke didn't include many postmarked in Virginia. The state has the largest number of free clinics in the nation.
This year, Trigon gave 27 clinics $20,000 each; it also sponsors an annual conference for the clinics.
Bradley Free Clinic inspired the conference and has been host of an Eastern U.S. Conference of free clinics. In 1997, Avner, the foundation and clinic supporters plan a national conference in Roanoke for the 350-plus clinics in the country.
The city is a fitting location for such a meeting to initiate, said John Bouffard, director of Haight Ashbury Free Medical in San Francisco, the nation's first free clinic.
Bouffard said Bradley and Haight Ashbury are "kind of sister clinics."
"Bradley Free Clinic is a model free clinic. It's known nationally for innovation and its extraordinary service delivery system," he said.
Since California is the state with the second largest number of clinics, Bouffard said he considered Haight Ashbury and Bradley partners in the leadership of the free clinic movement.
LENGTH: Long : 123 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. Dr. Kevin Kelleher andby CNBclinic director Estelle Nichols Avner go through letters they
received about the clinic. color.