Free Dare County clinic hits milestone, sees growing demand

By Kristin Davis
The Virginian-Pilot

DARE COUNTY

Coming from a free clinic in a suburb of Charlotte, Linda Saturno could not picture a need for such a facility on the Outer Banks.

"This is vacation land," she said. " This is the place people come to relax and have fun. It's glamorous. "

But soon after becoming the executive director of the Community Care Clinic of Dare in January, Saturno said, she realized she'd been wrong.

Having a large uninsured population is the nature of a tourist destination, she said. "A lot of restaurants and hotels don't offer insurance. Part of the year, they're out from work."

The need for a free clinic was first identified in 2002 during a meeting of the Dare County

Department of Public Health, the Department of Social Services, the Albemarle Hospital Foundation, local businesses and others in the medical community.

The Community Care Clinic of Dare opened in May 2005 in Kitty Hawk. By the end of the summer, it had expanded to Buxton on Hatteras Island. In January, a Manteo location opened, which has provided medical care for those who could not get to Kitty Hawk or Buxton, Saturno said.

Last month, the clinic registered its 1,000th patient. That number is likely to grow as the clinic enters its busiest season, Saturno said.

"Patients are out of work. They're able to tend to things," she said.

Staffed by volunteers, including physicians and nurses, the free clinic is available to those who live or work in Dare, have no health insurance and meet a certain set of financial criteria. It provides nonemergency care, prescription assistance, specialty care referrals and health education.

Carol Myles, who lives in Manns Harbor, stopped working full time in 1998 when day care for her two children became too expensive. That meant an end to health insurance.

Her children had coverage, and her husband received insurance through his job, "but it was very expensive to add on a spouse," Myles said.

She said she'd been fortunate not to have any major medical issues that she knew of. But Myles was "waiting with anticipation" for the clinic to open in 2005.

She was diagnosed with borderline high blood pressure, and the clinic helped her get medication at a low cost, Myles said. She was counseled on how to live a healthier lifestyle and has since lost 20 pounds, she said. She now visits the clinic once every six months and has blood work done once a year.

"They're a godsend," Myles said. "Being able to afford medicines, doctor visits, it's hard to fit that into a budget trying to provide for a family of four."

It's a common story - the U.S. Census Bureau reported in 2006 that 15.6 percent of all North Carolinians are without health insurance, according to statistics Saturno provided.

The Dare clinic plans to develop a risk-assessment program to focus more on prevention, Saturno said. Once a patient's risk factors are identified, "we'll put them into special patient education programs."

Those programs would target smoking, weight and diet among others, Saturno said. "We want to work ourselves out of some of our work."

For more information, call the Community Care Clinic of Dare at (252) 261-3041.

Kristin Davis, (252) 441-1623, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com