The Free Clinic of Southwest Washington received $50,000 in grant funding that should help bolster its volunteer program.
Volunteers are an important part of the Free Clinic’s services, said Ann Wheelock, executive director of the clinic. The Free Clinic specializes in free, quality health care to children and adults who are otherwise unable to obtain such services, according to a Free Clinic press release.
Wheelock said the Free Clinic has seen its staff working in the volunteer recruitment area shrink from two full-time staff to one person working part time. The grant should help increase the hours of that part-time employee.
The Free Clinic utilizes clinical specialists, who are generally college-aged people interested in going into some type of medical school, Wheelock said. Those specialists can help assist doctors by helping them find lab tests or with other duties.
“We have not been able to go out and recruit those volunteers,” Wheelock said. “This will hopefully give us room to rebuild that program back up.”
The Free Clinic will also look into using some of the funds to hire a community health worker who can focus on helping patients get their hypertension or diabetes under control, which are two problems Wheelock said the Free Clinic frequently encounters.
The grant comes from the Oregon Community Foundation and its Health Systems Access to Care Fund, which was created by Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Legacy Health, PeaceHealth and Providence Health & Services to help support clinics in Oregon and Southwest Washington.
Volunteers are the primary source of health care services at the Free Clinic since 1990. In the past year, the Free Clinic relied on more than 500 volunteers to help its almost 7,000 patients in the last year.
“We so appreciate the support,” Wheelock said in a press release. “Our patients will greatly benefit from more robust volunteer and medical programs.”
