MODESTO BEE
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

By KEN CARLSON
BEE STAFF WRITER

Last Updated: September 14, 2005, 05:13:10 AM PDT

Three years and four months ago, Stanislaus County opened the West Modesto Community Center, including the Paradise Medical Office, to bring medical and social services closer to west Modesto residents.
Now, a proposal to cut the county Health Services Agency deficit would convert the center to serve patients coming from throughout Modesto, and likely force out other services. Community leaders said west Modesto residents may also face longer waiting times to see doctors.

"They are very upset because this happens over and over again to west Modesto," said Carol Collins, a coordinator at the West Modesto KingKennedy Neighborhood Collaborative. "Things are started and then they are taken away."

The 27,000-square-foot center on Paradise Road brought affordable health services to children and adults of west Modesto.

Clinic employees speak second languages such as Spanish, Khmer and Laotian. And the center has provided other services including confidential family planning for teens, education and food vouchers for pregnant women and young mothers, literacy programs and mental health counseling.

The plan before the Board of Supervisors this morning calls for selling the Health Services Agency complex on Scenic Drive in Modesto and moving services to the Paradise center and other clinics.

One staff recommendation would order the county purchasing agent to execute new office leases for relocating Community Services Agency programs, the Women, Infants and Children program, and the Children and Families Commission from the Paradise center.

Karen Williams, director of the Stanislaus Literacy Center in the west Modesto facility, said she was told that literacy programs would have to move by December, if supervisors approve the plan today.

"When they built this community center, it was supposed to be a center to meet needs in the community," she said.

Clinic medical services may expand

Originally, west Modesto leaders asked the county for a branch library, but settled for a literacy center. In cooperation with the county library, one literacy center class teaches English classes to help clients understand the health system; another helps them apply for jobs.

Williams said most participants walk to the literacy center, and it received a $130,000 California Endowment grant partly because it shares the building with the health clinic.

Rick Robinson, the county's chief executive officer, said the Paradise clinic will have expanded medical services if the board approves the plan. The county has yet to find new locations for social services programs, the Women, Infants and Children program, and other programs, he said.

"We will try to move them to accessible locations," he said. "We don't know yet where."

Officials say the county Health Services Agency has lost about $52 million since 1997, when county supervisors closed the Stanislaus Medical Center on Scenic Drive in Modesto and went strictly to a clinic system to serve the uninsured.

To stop such losses, county staff and others recently developed a strategy that involves cutting patient volume by 20 percent and selling the antiquated facilities on Scenic Drive.

Center serves nearly 87,000 people a year

The complex, including a family practice center, speciality clinics and urgent care, handles almost 87,000 patient visits a year. The county would need additional clinic space at the Paradise Road facility to accommodate some of those patients.

Tommie Muhammad, program director at the King-Kennedy Memorial Center in west Modesto, said the proposal presents two problems: People who live near the Scenic Drive complex will have to go farther for medical care, and their presence at the Paradise clinic will result in swamped conditions there.

Now, he says, it seems the proposal is going to create long waiting times and some nonmedical services will be lost.

Supervisor Jeff Grover, whose district includes west Modesto, said he supports putting services close to where people live. "But when we are looking at trying to save this kind of money, we need to give medical services first priority."

As of Monday, Tenet Healthcare Corp., owner of Doctors Medical Center, had not officially weighed in on the county proposal. Doctors Medical Center has a contract with the county to provide hospital care for people who cannot pay.

Exlusion of illegal immigrants opposed

Earlier this year, Tenet lawyers claimed that the county had violated the contract by cutting clinic hours and charging fees that caused patients to use emergency rooms instead. The county's health restructuring proposal would scale back clinic patient volumes to the 1997 level, causing an estimated 17,700 patients to seek care elsewhere.

"We definitely oppose the cuts and think they will have a harmful effect on emergency rooms," Tenet spokesman David Langness said Monday. He said he had just returned from Tenet hospitals in hurricanetorn New Orleans and not discussed the county proposal with company lawyers.

Robinson said the proposal would not violate the Tenet contract, so long as county clinics maintain a minimum patient volume of 207,000 visits a year — the 1997 level.

Raul Garcia, director of El Concilio, which advocates for Central Valley Latinos, opposed a proposal to bar undocumented workers from county health services. He said illegal immigrants are an important part of the labor force, and these workers have taxes deducted from their wages.

If they are barred from county health services, he said, it will swamp emergency rooms and leave the county open to the spread of contagious diseases. "It is going to affect everyone," he said.

Today's Board of Supervisors meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. in the basement chamber at Tenth Street Place, 1010 10th St., Modesto.

Bee staff writer Ken Carlson can be reached at 578-2321 or kcarlson@modbee.com.