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1000 Patients Treated at Little Rock Free Health Clinic




Serious Conditions Are Uncovered Among More than 1,000 Patients at Little Rock Free Clinic
Another Clinic Is Planned for Kansas City

LITTLE ROCK – Saturday’s free health clinic at the Statehouse Convention Center treated more than 1,000 uninsured Arkansas residents with a variety of health problems, many of them serious. More than 90 percent of them had three or more life-threatening conditions, such as cardio-vascular disease, hypertension, diabetes and pulmonary disease.

Seven people had such serious conditions that physicians decided they should be taken immediately by ambulances to local hospital emergency departments. Of those, five were admitted to hospitals for cardiac reasons, and two of them had had recent hearts attacks of which they were unaware.

“With an army of more than 1,200 volunteers, we changed the lives of more than 1,000 people at this clinic,” Nicole Lamoureux, executive director of the National Association of Free Clinics (NAFC), said. “We provided them with not only basic medical care but also knowledge about how to improve their health and connections to the community safety net near where they live.”

The C.A.R.E. (Communities Are Responding Everyday) Clinic was designed to demonstrate the work that goes on daily at more than 1,200 free clinics across the country, including about two dozen free clinics in Arkansas, so that more people could take advantage of their services.

Many chronic medical conditions were treated among the more than 1,000 patients at the C.A.R.E. Clinic. Dr. Kimberly Garner, a Veterans Administration physician who served as medical director of the clinic, said high blood pressure was the most prevalent problem, followed by diabetes.

“You can’t treat blood pressure for just a week or even a month,” Garner said. “The most important thing we did in this clinic was not just to treat the patients’ conditions but to encourage them to use their local free clinics or other services they can afford for ongoing treatment.”

The volunteer workers at the clinic found that 69 percent of the patients either do not go anywhere for medical care or go to hospital emergency rooms. About 9 percent of the patients had been examined by a physician in more than 10 years, and another 24 percent had not seen a physician in more than five years.

The patients at Saturday’s clinic were 62 percent women and 38 percent men.

The Little Rock C.A.R.E. Clinic was the third massive free clinic sponsored by the NAFC. More than 1,700 patients received treatment at the first one in Houston in September, and more than 1,000 received treatment at the second one in New Orleans on Nov. 14. The next C.A.R.E. Clinic is scheduled for Kansas City, Mo., on Dec. 9-10.

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