Free Clinic gets dental grant
Lynchburg News and Advance
Sunday, December 13, 2005The Centra Health Foundation announced Monday that it has donated $100,000 to the Free Clinic of Central Virginia for equipment to expand its dental services. The gift will help the clinic double the number of patients it serves and reduce the wait time for dental care, which can be up to three months.
“When you have a dental problem, it affects your whole well-being,” said Kathyrn Pumphrey, executive vice president of the Central Health Foundation.
Pumphrey said the foundation has contributed more than $200,000 to the Free Clinic since 1998, and this is the largest single contribution to date.
While the foundation is providing money for equipment for three additional dental stations, Pumphrey said she hopes the gift will prompt citizens, businesses and other foundations to support the accompanying construction needed to expand dental services.
Bob Barlow, executive director of the Free Clinic, said the gift will mean his nonprofit will be able to serve nearly 4,000 patients. But first the clinic needs money to build the dental stations.
“What we need is new money for the construction costs,” he said, adding he hopes the expanded dental service will be up and running by next summer.
Barlow said the clinic needs $115,000 to construct three new dental stations and move the three existing stations so they are all on one floor.
The Free Clinic’s mission to help low-income and indigent people receive medical and dental care fits directly with the mission of the Centra Health Foundation, Pumphrey said. The foundation raises money for Centra Health’s internal operations as well as a Community Initiative Fund.
A survey commissioned by the foundation a few years ago showed the need for more dental care, Pumphrey said.
“One in five area residents have difficulty getting dental care,” she said.
The Free Clinic started in the basement of Westminster Presbyterian Church in 1989, but in 1992, board members decided to purchase a building on Main Street that had room for growth.
About 50 area dentists provide free care at the clinic. Some work in the evening, primarily doing extractions, while others supervise dental students from Virginia Commonwealth University, who provide care during the day.
Barlow noted that Centra Health contributes to the Free Clinic by providing free housing at Virginia Baptist Hospital to the VCU dental students, as well as staff rates for meals.
The Free Clinic, which also provides medical, nursing and pharmaceutical services, serves people at 150 percent of the poverty level who have no insurance, Medicare or Medicaid. An individual who makes $13,000, or two people who live on $18,000, are eligible for Free Clinic care, for example. Patients are only asked to pay $5 for administrative costs per visit.
More than 300 doctors, dentists and pharmacists donate between $1.2 million and $1.5 million worth of free labor to the clinic each year, Barlow said.
The operating budget of the clinic is about $500,000 a year, but with in-kind contributions, including $1.9 million worth of medications, the clinic’s budget is closer to $5 million, he said.
Pumphrey noted that the clinic reduces the strain on local hospitals.
“If we didn’t have the Free Clinic, we’d have a lot more people show up in the emergency rooms,” she said.
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