HEALTH CLINIC SEEKS NEW DOCTOR

County health department director Charlotte Craig hopes a new physician is hired within the next couple of weeks to provide services for approximately 4,000 pediatric patients of the Rural Health Clinic in Cape Girardeau.

Proposals from physicians interested in the position of medical director have been submitted from a number of practicing physicians, a fact that has Craig breathing a little easier in recent days. The health department's board of directors will begin considering the proposals at a meeting Tuesday.

"I haven't been inundated, but I have been pleased with the response," said Craig. "Lots of physicians have called and offered the support we need. That's been as emotionally supportive as it's been physically."

The health clinic, which receives more than 7,000 visits from low-income patients annually, is in the rear of the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center, 1121 Linden. The clinic has been without a medical director since longtime Cape Girardeau physician Dr. James Kinder Jr. was killed in an automobile accident in Georgia July 1.

Kinder had seen patients at the health department three and one-half days weekly since he closed his private practice in January 1997. He was at one time the only board-certified pediatrician between St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn., and had been practicing medicine longer than any other doctor in Southeast Missouri.

"Ever since Jim's death we have had to take one day at a time," said Craig. "We spoiled each other. He was the kind of guy who would do a lot of the paperwork himself. He solved a lot of the problems that are traditionally turned over to nurses to solve."

The Rural Health Clinic serves children and women and helps fill the gap for residents of Cape Girardeau and Bollinger counties. The majority of patients at the clinic are low-income, Medicaid recipients, while about 8 percent of patients have private insurance coverage.

"If they don't have Medicaid, there is a sliding fee schedule we use according to their ability to pay," Craig said. "That way we don't have to turn people down."

A pediatric nurse practitioner and several nurses staff the health clinic, so there has not been a gap in medical care for patients, Craig said. A number of area physicians also have offered to fill in while a replacement was sought for Kinder.

"We're carrying on of course, but just in a diminished capacity at the moment," she said. "If this were a permanent situation I'd be very frightened.".