For The Health of It

Volunteers donate time to staff clinic

Feb 24, 2008

Right away, Sharon Hurts knew there was something different about the Volunteer Health Corps (VHC) clinic.

Most patients assume the clinic is part of LSU/Earl K. Long Medical Center. VHC doctors, nurses and social workers meet patients in rooms that by day are the EKL dermatology clinic at LSU Mid-City, part of old Stanocola Clinic at North Foster Drive and Gus Young Avenue.

"I picked up on it the first evening," said Hurts, who has high blood pressure, concerns about symptoms of diabetes and depression. Her appointment time of 5:30 p.m. already had her wondering.

"What kind of appointment is at 5:30?" she said.

Listening to the volunteers, she realized some of them were meeting for the first time. "Then, it hit me," Hurts said. "They're getting off from work somewhere else before they come here."

The idea of Mike Rolfsen, an internist at Baton Rouge Clinic, VHC sees patients between EKL emergency room visits and the patients' follow-up with primary care physicians, a hookup that can take weeks.

The Tuesday night clinic may refer patients to a pharmacy down the hall.

The big differences between the busy hospital and VHC are fewer patients and, consequently, less time waiting to see a doctor.

"This clinic here," said Lisa Rowe, 41, from her perch on an examination room table, "the people here are all more courteous and more organized than the other (EKL) clinics. The first time I was here? Fifteen minutes, and I was gone."

"We try," chimed in Brenda Brown, 58, a registered nurse who by day runs Baton Rouge General's diabetes and family health centers.

Rowe has high blood pressure and asthma.

Tony Venible, 47, was born at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. He's been living in Baton Rouge since Hurricane Katrina forced him to leave New Orleans in 2005.

Venible drives a van for a company whose business it is to transport sick people to their doctors' appointments. The company doesn't provide health insurance for Venible.

Hurts had health insurance through her husband's employer, the U.S. Postal Service, until he went on disability. Now, the couple can't afford health insurance for Sharon.

The evening's drama is provided by Catherine Green's high blood sugar.

"We need to trend this down," said internal medicine physician Tony Sun, by day the medical director of Louisiana Health Care Review, a non-profit organization that monitors services patients receive from Medicare. This was Sun's third time to volunteer at the clinic.

"She's at 421," Sun said, writing an order for insulin. "We can't leave that alone." Green was at risk for stroke.

"We had one the other night that was 600," Brown said. "You have people at 300 walking around."

A healthy person's blood sugar level is around 120.

While Sun is on the telephone ordering medication for Green, he and a Wal-Mart pharmacist work out a drug regimen that is much cheaper than what Green's been paying.

"We want to take acute issues and do something long term," said Sun, speaking now as a Medicare expert. "The pharmacy is an integral part of that."

Not all physicians are cost conscious, Sun said, "because they have patients with coverage. They give patients prescriptions for 10 or 12 drugs when we KNOW six are about all patients will go buy or can figure out how to take."

Volunteer social workers like Shannon Cerise talk to patients about the best places to get inexpensive medications, where to look for better jobs and techniques for dealing with anxiety and feeling overwhelmed.

From her work with people displaced by Hurricane Katrina, Cerise knows that taking time off from work to seek medical help is a problem.

"If I had the option of going to the doctor at night," she said, "I probably would."

At 9 p.m., the volunteers are still seeing patients, some of whom arrived an hour after the clinic opened for the evening.

Catherine Green, looking dazed but better than when she came in, was discharged in the company of another woman. The two women stood under an overhang waiting for their ride as a cold rain fell on an asphalt parking lot.

Registered nurse Norma Cady, 56, manager of Baton Rouge General Bluebonnet's same-day surgery and recovery room, is drawing on her energy reserve.

"It's past our bedtime," she smiled.

By Ed Cullen. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission