Clinic on wheels leaves town
Spokane’s Ronald McDonald Care Mobile has been sent back to Chicago after two regional medical providers couldn’t find funding for the low-income clinic on wheels.
About 1,100 patients who had no money and no transportation for immunizations, health screenings, physicals and other services were told in January that the program was on “hiatus,” according to a recorded phone message.
But the five-year-old program ended last week, according to officials from the Inland Northwest Health Services and Washington State University Intercollegiate College of Nursing, which jointly operated the venture.
Both agencies declined to continue to foot the bill estimated at $400,000 a year to staff and maintain the clinic, said Mike Forness, executive director of the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Spokane.
“After four and a half years, they just decided they couldn’t keep it going,” said Forness, whose agency donated the distinctive bus decorated with the likeness of the McDonald’s clown. “It was certainly disappointing that the two large organizations couldn’t continue to fund it. I don’t know, maybe that tells you something.”
The Care Mobile was started with much fanfare in 2002, when the McDonald’s charity donated the $300,000 mobile unit and the Spokane community pledged to raise $1.3 million in matching funds to cover operations for the first five years. By last year, it was among 29 similar vans providing care to uninsured and low-income clients in the U.S. and abroad, according to the McDonald’s charities Web site.
But when the contract between INHS and the nursing school ran out, so did the support, said Dorothy Detlor, former dean of the WSU nursing school.
“We spent quite a bit of time looking for additional partners,” she said Tuesday. “Truly, we did not have the money to do it.”
At INHS, organizers kept their original commitment to provide $250,000 for the project over five years, said spokeswoman Nicole Stewart.
“The initial intent was that they were going to be able to sustain the program,” said Stewart, who added that INHS contributes to other projects that provide medical care to vulnerable clients.
The need for mobile medical care has not diminished, Detlor said. In 2006, about 9.3 percent of the population was uninsured, according to state population surveys. About a quarter of those with incomes up to 100 percent of the federal poverty level – $40,000 for a family of four – lacked insurance.
Transportation and access continue to be barriers to adequate health care, she noted.
But operating the McDonald Care Mobile offered challenges as well as solutions, Detlor said. The unit, a fully equipped van, had room for just one staff member, which limited opportunities for students from the nursing school. Finding appropriate hours and places to attract not only children but also their parents, who had to authorize medical care, also proved difficult. On average, the unit served about 100 clients a month.
When the program ended, the McDonald’s charity took the rolling clinic back to headquarters in Chicago to be refurbished. If a new partner is found, they’ll send it back.
Forness is hopeful that a new agency will step up soon to provide long-term funding for the Care Mobile. He’s been talking with at least three potential partners in central Washington, northeast Washington and Spokane, although he declined to identify them.
“Ideally, we would like to know by the end of August,” Forness said. If a new partner is found, the Ronald McDonald Care Mobile could be rolling again by January.