Pierce County is about to get a free clinic unlike any other in the state: It will serve only uninsured people with chronic illnesses.

Volunteer doctors and nurses will operate in donated space with donated supplies, backed by donated equipment and lab testing. They plan to see 70 people a month who aren’t getting treatment for diabetes or hypertension.

Service to 70 people is a good start, but miles from a solution.

A year and a half ago, Janet Runbeck was helping out at the Southeast FISH Food Bank, owned by the Lutheran Church of Christ the King.

Beth Elliott, executive director of FISH was working with her.

Runbeck mentioned that she was a retired nurse.

“I told her that many of our customers do not have health insurance,” Elliott said. “Many of them have health-related problems.”

A study by the University of Washington Tacoma School of Nursing found that a third of the food bank users have at least one chronic illness.

The converted house at 1704 85th St. E. is the busiest of the FISH food banks. In July, it served 15,000 people, or just over 1,000 on each of the 14 days it was open.

Elliott and Runbeck figured it was the logical site for a clinic, so they brought the idea to Rev. Peter Mohr of Christ the King.

“Yes,” he said, then improved on the idea.

The Sunday School classrooms, which are small and private, accessible and close to bathrooms, would be better.

“They were built to the glory of God to be used to the glory of God,” Mohr said.

Runbeck started organizing.

“In trying to find partners I heard about RotaCare of Puget Sound,” she said. “They were ready to start a fourth free clinic somewhere in Puget Sound.”

The organization already has clinics in Bellevue, Renton and Lake City.

Bob McBeth, chair or RotaCare of Puget Sound, worked with Don Doman, of Rotary Club of Tacoma No. 8, to set up the partnership.

“We’re all watching the health care debate in Washington,” McBeth said. “But it isn’t going to happen that fast, and the need between now and then is very real.”

RotaCare dates to 1989, when a Rotary member organized a free clinic in Santa Clara, Calif.

When founding director Ken Graham moved to Bellevue, he brought the idea with him and established three clinics.

“Now Tacoma is the fourth,” said McBeth. “This one is different. All the others provide urgent care, and then get the patient into the system.”

RotaCare has tried and failed to run clinics exclusively for people with chronic illnesses, he said, and Runbeck has learned from those failures.

She’s worked up a plan to do the task at hand without distractions. Rotary and United Way will donate funds for insulin. Franciscan Health Systems will donate lab work. Accu-Chek will donate blood sugar monitors.

Doctors and nurses, including medical director Dr. Mary Hoagland-Scher, will volunteer.

The clinic still needs testing supplies for diabetics, and it is recruiting more volunteer doctors, nurses and social workers.

It is not recruiting patients.

“We are already at capacity,” Hoagland-Scher said.

So don’t mistake this clinic for comprehensive care. It will laser in on its mission. That means when a diabetes or hypertension patient comes in with pneumonia, she won’t be treated for the pneumonia. She will have to go elsewhere for that care.

People who don’t show up for appointments or follow through with treatment will be dropped.

People will stay in the program for only a year.

Patients won’t see the same doctor.

That’s a long list of what it won’t or can’t do.

What it will do is start in September providing free, reliable care to a few dozen people who don’t get treatment for their diabetes or hypertension because they can’t afford it.

Without that care, they would get sicker and sicker until they’re forced into the emergency room and a bill they’d never be able to pay.

Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677

kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com

what they need

RotaCare Free Chronic Care Clinic of Tacoma needs:

1. Diabetic testing supplies, especially test strips

2. Doctors, nurses and social workers to volunteer.

3. Money to buy insulin.

To help, contact:

RotaCare Tacoma

C/O The Rotary Club of Tacoma #8

P.O. Box 1777, Tacoma, WA 98401-1777

253-370-3988

info@rotacaretacoma.org