And a staple of care on the Coastside has experienced a dramatic increase in patients, too. Now, the Coastside RotaCare Clinic at Shoreline Station will be expanding its hours to take on more medical services for the local community. Normally open for only a small window on Wednesday evenings, the clinic will use grant money to help more patients on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Expanding the service of the RotaCare clinic was made possible from a $10,000 grant from United Way of the Bay Area. The nonprofit charity announced the donation in a public ceremony with county Supervisor Rich Gordon on Tuesday at Seton Medical Center Coastside.
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“The United Way grant is very much appreciated as it will certainly help the Coastside RotaCare clinic continue our services to those in need,” said Cheryl Sinclair, community outreach manager for the clinic.
Staffed by volunteers and pro-bono physicians, the RotaCare clinic has been operating on the Coastside for 16 years, primarily helping those without insurance to get medical care. However, the small second-floor clinic has taken on much larger local significance since March, when the Coastside Family Medical Center -- largest medical provider for the area – abruptly closed.
As a result, the number of patients at the RotaCare clinic has reportedly doubled.
“Giving this grant isn’t a final solution, but it will tide things over until the community can come together for something better,” said United Way spokeswoman Maria Stokes.
Numerous former patients from the Coastside medical center have complained about having difficulties getting new medical care and getting their patient charts forwarded to a new doctor.
United Way is also considering a second grant to help fund a volunteer effort to copy and distribute medical records from the shuttered clinic. Stokes says the nonprofit board of directors will vote this week on an undisclosed amount to help with medical records.
Even if approved, it may take weeks before a large-scale effort to handle the records can go forward, according to Dr. Grant Weiss, who heads the volunteer Phoenix Project, which has coalesced around the need for better local medical care.
The court-appointed trustee handling the bankruptcy for the Coastside medical center says that she wants to wait one to three weeks before allowing volunteers to access patient records.
“I would hope that we would have something tentative in place by the end of the week, but whatever we do is subject to court approval,” trustee E. Lynn Schoenmann said. “There’s privacy concerns throughout here … we need to make sure patients’ privacy is protected.”
For now, Weiss says that any special cases, such as emergencies, in which a former patient needs to access medical records can be streamlined. Students who need their immunization records in order to enroll in universities can also get their medical charts, according to Grant. He advises any patients who need help to contact him at ombudsman@hmbphoenix.org.
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