Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

New free clinic downtown aims to help ‘working poor’

The Ruffin Family Clinic Official Opening

L.E. Baskow

Patient Sohail Hoquani listens as friend Angelo Joseph consults on medications with Dr. Robert Shiroff at the Ruffin Family Clinic, a new free clinic operated by Volunteers in Medicine of Southern Nevada on Wednesday, October 14, 2015.

Ruffin Family Clinic Official Opening

Dr. Robert Shiroff jokes with patient Kelly Bain during an appointment Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2015, at the Ruffin Family Clinic, a free clinic operated by Volunteers in Medicine of Southern Nevada that recently opened. Launch slideshow »

Two-hundred dollars.

When Kelly Bain, 60, and her husband’s economic stability crumbled four years ago, that’s the amount that separated them from obtaining health insurance.

Their story goes like this: Her husband was diagnosed with cancer, suffered a few strokes and lost his job. Her part-time job didn’t provide health benefits, but their income was still $200 above the qualifying threshold for Medicaid.

According to health officials, it’s a common tale.

The couple fell into what doctors at Volunteers in Medicine of Southern Nevada call the gap area — people ineligible for Medicaid but too poor to afford private or government-subsidized insurance plans.

“These are often the people who need health care the most,” said Dr. Florence Jameson, who heads Volunteers in Medicine of Southern Nevada, the nonprofit group that provides medical care for the uninsured in Clark County. “They’re just the working poor.”

That vulnerable population now has a little more help.

The nonprofit on Wednesday celebrated the grand opening of its second free clinic in the Las Vegas Valley. Called the Ruffin Family Clinic, an ode to major benefactors Phil and Oleksandra Ruffin, it’s located near downtown at the corner of North Martin Luther King Boulevard and Madison Avenue.

The $2.4 million, 12,000-square-foot facility features 10 examination rooms — six general and four designated for families — in addition to counseling offices, procedure rooms, an optometry clinic, dental clinic, pharmacy, radiology center and laboratory.

In coming months, the clinic will integrate dental care and mental health and social services into its offerings — a new focus for the volunteer group, which also runs the Paradise Park clinic in east Las Vegas. The Council for the Greater Good recently awarded Volunteers in Medicine of Southern Nevada a $100,000 grant to help fund a licensed social worker and caseworker.

Many of the clinics’ patients have a mental illness, such as severe anxiety or depression, on top of chronic medical conditions, Jameson said.

“It is so important to address the mental and medical illness in order for the person to be whole and healthy,” she said.

People eligible to receive free medical care — and prescription medications, if needed — at either clinic must be uninsured, a resident of Southern Nevada for at least three months and have a household income that doesn’t exceed 200 percent of the federal poverty level. (That’s $23,540 for one person or $48,500 for a family of four, for instance.)

The Ruffin Family Clinic, which provides primary and specialty care, has been seeing patients for a month during its soft opening and, during that time frame, 120 new people have applied to receive care, said Andrea Eghterafi, who coordinates the clinic’s electronic medical records.

With roughly 300,000 uninsured people statewide, the clinic expects to log 2,500 office visit its first year; 10,000 office visits by the third year; and 30,000 by the fifth year.

“We’re here and we need the help — financial as well as volunteers,” said Dr. Robert Shiroff, a cardiologist who has volunteered since the nonprofit’s inception.

Donning a red stethoscope around his neck, Shiroff visited a steady stream of patients Wednesday afternoon, including Bain, who had been having intermittent chest pain.

“Do you get shortness of breath?” Shiroff asked her.

“Oh, big time.”

“Do you get sweaty?”

“Yep.”

“Feel your heart go pitter-patter?”

“Yeah.”

The questions continued as Shiroff alternated between scribbling notes and physically examining Bain. He concluded her pain might be caused by atrial fibrillation, an irregular and rapid heart beat, so he ordered an electrocardiogram test. Soon, another volunteer was wheeling in the equipment to conduct the EKG.

Bain, marveling at the beauty of the new facility, said she and her husband have relied on the free clinics for the past four years.

“I couldn’t do without it,” she said.

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