SLU community volunteers are ‘crucial to Casa de Salud’
Translated from Spanish as “The House of Wellness,” Casa de Salud, founded and sponsored by Saint Louis University, serves as a clinic, episodic health care center and referral agency for patients in St. Louis. Located on the corner of Compton Avenue and Chouteau Avenue, Casa de Salud serves patients who that are otherwise unable to afford quality health services.
“If you have a cold, if you need a flu shot, if you have a toenail that needs to be pulled, if you have a sprained ankle–that’s episodic healthcare, and so when patients come to us, we fix them up,” Bob Fox, chairman of Casa de Salud, said. “And then we connect them with long- term continuity of care programs, like a medical home.”
Fox, with his wife Maxine Clark, spearheaded the creation of Casa de Salud after the failure of two previous clinics due to unsustainable funding.
When these clinics did not succeed, Fox said he felt that another clinic would be a necessity to the immigrant community and financially distressed citizens in St. Louis. Instead of just funding the clinic, however, Fox said he felt that he should take a leadership role in its development.
“Prior to this, I had not been in a leadership role,” Fox said. “So, being the founder and the chair of the board of this organization has changed my life. It has given me hope that when you roll your sleeves up and go to work, you can accomplish miracles.”
According to Fox, the clinic connects patients to local programs and services in an effort to make them feel more accepted in the city. Fox said that the clinic also benefited the community by providing a healthy workforce to businesses, which in turn keeps those employees from both spreading sicknesses and from missing work hours.
“We identify early signs of chronic disease and get people into care, so that they don’t end up severely ill in our emergency rooms and occupying our hospital beds,” Fox said.
According to Casa de Salud Executive Director Jorge Riopedre, patients in need will receive services at the clinic, even if they are unable to pay for their visit.
“If the patient cannot pay, they don’t pay. They receive services,” Riopedre said.
Riopedre said that the clinic is “monumentally important,” due to the number immigrants in the country who do not have health insurance. He said that, when sick, economically underprivileged immigrants are often faced with the choice of taking a severe financial hit to receive treatment or receive no treatment at all.
“If that person remains sick, when that disease runs its course and gets to its end stages, they must go to the hospital. They must go to an emergency room,” Riopedre said. “And we, who are insured, pick up the tab for that. So, anyway you shake it, it’s a bad situation.”
Although Riopedre said the clinic was “branded for the Hispanic community,” anyone in need of health care is welcome to receive treatment at the clinic.
“Anyone who doesn’t have insurance, which is then a barrier to accessing care, has a place in Casa to come and get high quality low cost care,” Ripoedre said. “We are open regardless of ethnicity, race, creed, color, anything.”
In addition to health and wellness care, the clinic also offers physical therapy, occupational therapy, nutritional and dietetic counseling and gynecology.
According to Riopedre, in order to better serve the patients attending Casa de Salud, the building will be expanded by 4,000 square feet by the beginning of December. The expansion will divide the clinic between patient care services and administrative services, making the building more privacy compliant.
Besides the staff, everyone that works at Casa de Salud is a volunteer. Volunteers include 30 physicians and 100 students, many of whom are SLU students. The SLU School of Medicine offers students an opportunity to volunteer at the clinic as an elective course.
Riopedre said that although Casa de Salud is capable of allowing more volunteer students, applying is selective.
“We see it, frankly, as a privilege to be able to work here,” Riopedre said.
In order to volunteer at Casa de Salud, an applicant must fill out an application, submit to a background check and take a Spanish language proficiency test. In addition, volunteers must receive a tuberculosis shot prior to volunteering.
So far in 2011, the 100 student volunteers at Casa de Salud have contributed nearly 3,000 hours to the center. The 30 medical volunteers have provided 40 hours a week of service between them.
“Without that participation, we would not be able to stay open. We are absolutely dependent on the generosity of our volunteers. The Saint Louis University volunteer, in particular, has been crucial to Casa de Salud,” Riopedre said.
However, Riopedre said that because the organization is relatively small, volunteers and staff at Casa de Salud have few resources to host many events. Despite this, Riopedre said Casa de Salud hosts fund-raising programs when it can, such as a beverage booth benefiting the clinic at Fair Saint Louis, and gives away tickets for SLU basketball games.
Casa de Salud is hosting its first fundraising gala, “Let’s Go! Zocaloco!”on Nov. 11 in the Wool Ballrooms, located Busch Student Center
“All other fund-raising till now has basically been the solicitation of grants from granting organizations,” Rioedre said. “This is the first time that this organization has ever gone out and put a fund-raising event together.”
Riopedre said that SLU students are invited to the gala. Tickets are available to students at $75 each, half the price of non-student tickets at $150.
The event will feature an internal marketplace with handmade goods, Saint Louis University President Lawrence Biondi, S.J., said in his September 2011 message to the campus.
“It is gratifying to see the increasing difference Casa is making in our community and to see support for its mission continuing to grow,” Biondi said in the message.
