Free Clinic reaches milestone

• Woeste and Rasmussen

A tight-knit, loyal army of volunteers has kept the free clinic serving needy patients in Pierce and St. Croix counties for five years. Above, Dr. David Woeste and pharmacist Dane Rasmussen, owner of Village Pharmacy in Baldwin, chat and laugh as they prepare for another Tuesday evening of clinic operations. -- Photo by Phil Pfuehler

Talk about it

RIVER FALLS--The data is sobering.

From April 2007 to the end of last year, there were 10,695 patient visits to the Free Clinic of Pierce and St. Croix Counties.

During that time, the free clinic treated 3,326 patients—52 percent were men. Last year, it treated 364 new patients.

The prime age of free clinic patients is 45-64. More than half are jobless. About a quarter work part-time and about a fifth work full-time.

While the free clinic has been able to get many of its medications for free or reduced prices, it dispensed at retail value $639,794 worth of prescriptions to its patients last year.

“The need really hasn’t changed since we began,” said Mary Conroy-Johnson, a free clinic founder and its current board of directors’ chair. “Typically, we see 25 people each evening we’re open, and we regularly have to turn people away.”

Julie Gore, clinic fund development coordinator, said the stark, visible truth starts with the line forming outside the designated door--even on the coldest days of winter--of the River Falls Medical Clinic each Tuesday around 4 p.m.

That’s shortly before the free clinic opens at 5 p.m. Registration generally starts about a half hour earlier.

“It’s very humbling to see because these are not just poverty-stricken people who need our help,” Gore said. “They are often people who have held jobs for a long time, but now are unemployed and don’t have health-care coverage. They are older, and their health in more vulnerable.”

That’s what makes the free clinic’s safety net even more essential--its patients often show up with chronic ailments like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. They’ve delayed seeing a doctor or taking medications because they can’t afford it.

Conroy-Johnson said that, for example, a diabetic patient can need “a minimum seven or eight prescriptions and continual treatments” to regain and maintain adequate health.

“Those are our patients,” says Conroy-Johnson.

April 24 was the five-year anniversary of the River Falls-based free clinic.

No festivities marked the occasion.

For more please read the May 2 print version of the Herald.

Phil Pfuehler is editor of the River Falls Journal.

Tags: news, wisconsin, health