FREE CLINIC RETURNS TO SERVE COMMUNITY
Health officials treats patients with no insurance and those underinsured
CHICO » The Shalom Free Clinic continues to open its door again to treat patients and give students an opportunity to shadow volunteering professionals on Sundays.
“If you’re a diabetic and you live on the streets what do you do?” said clinic director Nancy Morgans-Ferguson. “You might talk to us and ask us “I need a place to keep my medicine refrigerated or what degree of refrigeration do I need to keep?”
The original idea to have each service provided at one location was the initial plan for Morgans-Ferguson, who said that her idea of the clinic is similar to a “one-stop-shop” rather than referring a patient to another clinic where they could potentially wait weeks for service.
The clinic focuses on treating patients with no insurance
or are underinsured in order to prioritize resources to patients who don’t have primary options. While volunteers and the clinic director do not ask the patient if they have insurance themselves, the doctors will ask the patient themselves.
“You have options. I’ll drive people to Ampla. But why would we take the place of someone who doesn’t have any place else when these people have options.”
Rayaud Nassar has been volunteering with the clinic for four years and is now the supervisor of the clinic.
“We would do general vital checks and patient history while chatting with them and asking them what their biggest concern for the day is while trying to make a connection with them,” said Nassar. “Then we would usually hand them off to a care provider who would see them for whatever concern they had in the day.”
The name of the clinic stems from the Hebrew word, “shalom” which translates to peace, said Morgans-Ferguson.
“There will never be peace in the world until everyone has access to affordable and good medical care.” How can we deny people medical care? I just don’t get it,” said Morgans-Ferguson.
Patrick Owens, a volunteer since 2017 and a Chico State alumni in Nutrition and Food Science initially joined to provide service to the community of Chico where he originally gave nutrition counseling.
“It’s a good place to serve the community and there’s a large community of under