WESTFIELD – After five years of providing area residents with free medical care for the last few years, the Greater Westfield Free Health Service clinic will be providing it’s final session on December 17.
Located on 16 Arnold Street, the clinic will be open from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Dr. Francis Horrigan has been working at the free clinic since it started and estimated that the clinic has seen between 300 and 400 patients during that time span.
“We run two sessions a month, from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m.,” said Horrigan. “When we first started, we’d see six to 10 patients a session and over the past year, year and a half, it’s been only two patients a session.”
Horrigan said that running the clinic required a staff of one doctor and two to three nurses, along with front office staff.
In other words, the clinic’s drop in patronage no longer validated the clinic’s services.
“The clinic was designed primarily for interim care, to take care of an acute problem while somebody is getting hooked up with a practice,” said Horrigan. “Some people will come in for a one time injury, although we’ve had some people come in for chronic problems who needed continuity in their medication.”
Horrigan stated that helping patients in transition was the clinic’s most valuable service.
“We worked closely with Noble Hospital. We helped them (patients) get counseling or help with Medicaid or one of the connectors,” he said. “A large percentage of our patients did go through that process and ended up with a practice.”
Recent immigrants, from as many as 13 countries, composed a considerable portion of the clinic’s clients, according to Horrigan.
“Most of our patients were what I called ‘tweeners’ – either they weren’t making enough to have insurance or they were in between jobs,” he said.
The clinic also received elderly residents and students from Westfield State University as well. Patients also ventured in from as far north as Chicopee and as far west as the hilltowns for care at the clinic.
For local residents in need of free clinic care, Horrigan said that there is a similar facility in East Longmeadow.
“We were all volunteers – the doctors and nurses who give all the care, they do it for nothing,” said Candy Oyler, chair of the Board of Directors of Greater Westfield Free Health Services.
Oyler said that the facility had to move from Main Street to it’s current location several years back, adding that some of the clinic’s patients liked the care they received there more than the primary care they ended up with later on.
“It was an outreach that grew out of the Church of the Atonement and I’m pretty sad that our last clinic will be on the 17th,” she said. “The kindness in the neighborhood… when the Westfield BID (Business Improvement District) was around, they helped us find sites, put us in touch with partners. It was community working with community.”
Oyler praised the efforts of Noble Hospital CEO Ron Bryant and the federal Affordable Care Act for helping to alleviate the need for a facility like the free clinic.
“One of the things we worked with people on was getting insured and we worked with Noble Hospital,” she said. “Our goal was to be in business until we didn’t have to be in business anymore and it pretty much worked out that way.”
“We wouldn’t close if we still had the attendance we need to stay open,” Oyler added. “Everybody’s proud about it (the clinic).”
According to Oyler, the word is that there are plans to possibly place another clinic in the city and that she is hoping to meet with Westfield Mayor Daniel M. Knapik about that prospect.
“We hear there’s a paid clinic that might be opening. That’s the goal,” she said. “Ron Bryant and the Mayor are looking to bring in a new health group eventually. It’s on hold right now, but we wouldn’t leave Westfield without an alternative.”
“But Westfield is in a great position right now.”
Anyone wishing to receive more information may call the clinic at (413) 562-2040.
