FAYETTEVILLE -- Northwest Arkansas' only health clinic providing dentistry, primary care and other medical services at no charge to its patients turns 30 years old this month.
WelcomeHealth, previously known as the Northwest Arkansas Free Health Clinic, started in 1986 in the basement of downtown Fayetteville's St. James Methodist Church. It opened at 5:30 p.m. on Thursdays and closed when there was no one left in line, said Jessie Bryant, a former Washington County justice of the peace who helped found the clinic.
"There were so many people in Northwest Arkansas that did not have insurance nor money to go to a regular physician," said Bryant, adding that she got the idea from a visiting Virginia couple who had started a similar clinic in their home state. "The very first night we opened, we had people outside and inside and around the sides."
Today, the clinic stands in its own building off North Street near the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences campus and provides more than 11,000 X-rays, dental fillings, prescription assistance and other medical services per year for about 400 individual patients, said Monika Fischer-Massie, the clinic's executive director.
Some patients are uninsured and some are homeless, but Fischer-Massie said many more have some form of insurance and would be considered the working poor -- people who keep jobs for most of the year, but still fall under the federal poverty line, which is about $20,000 for a family of three. Several patients are sent to the clinic by the Salvation Army or county drug courts.
Anyone who has a household income of up to twice the federal poverty line can get help at the clinic.
Diabetes, heart problems and other long-lasting health concerns are common among the group, Fischer-Massie said.
"Often their health has been pushed to the back burner," said Brittney Gulley, the clinic's development director. "If they have good health care, they can go to work on time and have that paycheck."
Donations from churches and other groups and a grant from the Arkansas Department of Health aimed at free clinics cover the clinic's annual budget of about $900,000. Volunteer physicians, dental and nursing students and a mostly part-time staff do the rest.
Linda Knowlton, a grandmother who cooks and delivers pizzas in Pea Ridge, went to the clinic for about two years until last summer, when she got a primary care doctor through her new health insurance. She has diabetes and said she couldn't afford her medications at the time; WelcomeHealth helped bring both of those concerns under control.
"They're there for you," Knowlton said of WelcomeHealth. Her first visits included several minutes covering her health issues, and she didn't feel rushed or unimportant, she said. "They try to help you out, whatever avenues they can get you through."
Knowlton added: "I really miss going there."
WelcomeHealth fills a critical gap in care for people such as Knowlton, said Kevin Fitzpatrick, a sociology professor at the University of Arkansas who directs the Community and Family Institute there and studies the region's low-income and homeless populations.
The Community Clinic in Springdale and elsewhere, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, provides health care on a sliding-fee scale based on income level. Washington Regional Medical Center's mobile dental clinic and the Samaritan Community Center in Rogers give free dental clinics. The medical center's clinic has served 2,000 people since its launch in 2014 and isn't taking new patients until next spring to focus on those it's already treating, said Larry Shackelford, the center's senior vice president of outreach services.
But only WelcomeHealth gives dental and other medical care for free, Fitzpatrick and Fischer-Massie said.
"Without that, where are they going to end up? Well, nine chances out of 10, in the emergency rooms," Fitzpatrick said. Clinics such as WelcomeHealth "end up, I think, filling a gap that we just don't have anything for."
WelcomeHealth has the drawback of being in one spot and, while it stands near an Ozark Regional Transit stop, Fitzpatrick has found a lack of transportation to be one of the most common concerns in his surveys of the area's homeless population and other low-income groups. He said he hopes to eventually help form a kind of hybrid clinic in south Fayetteville that has a central location but provides mobile care at least a few times a month.
Tens of thousands of people in Northwest Arkansas would qualify for the clinic's services, according to data from Fischer-Massie, dwarfing its few hundred patients. Still, it's popular enough that medical appointments are often full two weeks out, and dental appointments are full for about two months.
"They are doing a really great job and have, I think, performed a service that's vital. But man it seems like a drop [in the bucket] sometimes," Fitzpatrick said.
Gulley said WelcomeHealth is working on reaching more people. Volunteers head to the weekly community meal at Fayetteville's Genesis Church and to the Salvation Army regularly to spread the word about the clinic, for example. The clinic plans to extend its services to children for the first time early next year. Someday it might be able to run tests in-house, too, Gulley said.
"We still have room to grow," she said. "The patients are out there, and they keep coming."
Metro on 10/24/2016