HEALTH CLINIC MEETS A GROWING NEED

The Rural Health Clinic operated through the Cape Girardeau County Health Department is serving a much-needed health-care void in Cape Girardeau and Bollinger counties.

Last year, clinic visits totaled 7,035, an average of 586 a month. Without the clinic, many if not most of those children and women probably would have not received medical attention when they were ill.

The clinic is an outgrowth of what used to be the county well-baby clinic. As its name implied, the clinic offered care to healthy children and mothers, and it could not see them if they were ill. That was a problem for some families if they didn't have private health insurance or if they qualified for Medicaid but couldn't find doctors to accept Medicare patients. They wound up going to local emergency rooms for ear infections or other routine illnesses, if they got care at all.

Six years ago Cape Girardeau and Bollinger counties teamed up and got a state grant to establish the rural clinic. Both counties qualified because they were designated medically underserved -- Bollinger County because it had only one physician and Cape Girardeau County because of limited health-care access resulting from so few doctors' accepting new Medicare-Medicaid patients.

The clinic began with limited personnel and has grown to include a full-time pediatrician. It also has become self-sustaining.

Despite Cape Girardeau being a regional medical hub with its many doctors, there are still many who can't get in to see them because they aren't accepting Medicare-Medicaid patients. The sheer numbers of patients seen by the Rural Health Clinic is clear indication that it is serving a vital role in the two-county area.