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Looking at the indescribable 32,000 square foot facility in the 1700 block of Hopewell Street, Archbishop John C. Wester said the free medical clinic is more than just a building.
It is, he told an assembly of about 35 people at the clinic’s open house on Sunday, “a living tribute to the good … that we do for each other.”
Wester was referring to the newly built Villa Thérèse Catholic Clinic, an enlarged version of the smallest clinic in the city center that is almost 85 years old. The new facility is expected to open around November 1, said Victoria Otero, executive director of the clinic.
The new facility has three rooms for medical care, two for dental care and one for vision, as well as a room for triage services. The current downtown clinic has a medical and dental room, Otero said.
The clinic is now better situated to serve its clientele – people without health insurance, migrants and children and adults who need immediate care and cannot get a doctor’s appointment quickly, she said. .
“A lot of our patients find it difficult to get to a clinic,” she said, adding that many come by bus or on foot. The clinic, now closer to the city center, provides regular services to people living in the Hopewell Street area, on Airport Road and along Agua Fria Road, she said.
The non-profit organization relies on grants, foundation funds and private donations to operate, she said. Before the pandemic, the clinic served approximately 1,000 patients per year. Last year, that number fell to around 400, Otero said.
These free medical clinics are becoming increasingly important for those who cannot afford health insurance, according to the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, which says about 2 million people depend on some 1,400 free medical clinics. in all the countries.
The city’s support has helped make the new facility a reality, said Emelda Martinez, chair of the clinic’s campaign council. The Santa Fe Civic Housing Authority has offered Villa Thérèse a 50-year lease on the land.
As the city helped get the project started, Martinez said clinic executives were to raise $ 1 million as a first payment on this lease. They raised $ 300,000, she said.
Although the coronavirus pandemic has made fundraising a challenge, Martinez said people and medical professionals – including several who volunteer at the clinic – have come together to support the initiative.
A health care provider, she said, donated a portable x-ray machine.
“Do you know how much it costs? she asked – suggesting it’s a steep price.
In 1937, Archbishop Rudolph Aloysius Gerken and the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati opened the clinic on the property of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in downtown Santa Fe. At that time it was known under the name of Catholic Clinic.
In 1952, Archbishop Edwin Vincent Byrne placed the clinic under the patronage of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, a French Catholic Carmelite nun who lived and served in the late 1800s, and it was renamed Clinique catholique Villa Thérèse.
Wester said on Sunday that Saint Teresa, who died in 1897 of tuberculosis, was striving to “find God in the simple things.”
He called the clinic “a place to get help.”
Mary Ray Cate, a retired general practitioner who has volunteered at the clinic for nearly 30 years, said on Sunday the clinic was a safety net for those “who fall through the cracks, the people who don’t. have no health insurance “.
She and Otero said a challenge is recruiting healthcare professionals to work at the clinic on a volunteer basis. Once the pandemic is over, it might be easier to attract more health care providers, Otero said. But for now, many retired doctors who would be ideal for the clinic could be among the most vulnerable to contracting the respiratory virus, she said.
Many people may not be aware the clinic exists, Otero said. She said the association will create an awareness campaign to educate the community about its services and attract volunteers.
The clinic, she said, “will give more people access to health care” and help “build a healthy community”.
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