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Christ Clinic makes room for more

Kevin Graman
Staff writer
November 10, 2008

Christ Clinic dedicated its new facility today. Ken and Marilyn Anderson have been clients of the clinic since 1997. "If it wasn't for Christ Clinic, I'd be dead," Ken said. (Colin Mulvany) Map: Christ Clinic's new location

The way Kenneth and Marilyn Anderson see it, Christ Clinic saved their lives.

In 1996, after Marilyn Anderson was laid off from her job with a photo studio, she found herself without health insurance just as she developed diabetes. Soon afterward, her husband had a heart attack and no longer could work as a truck driver.

“It wasn’t for Christ Clinic, I’d be dead. My lungs are real bad. I could go any time,” Kenneth Anderson said of the West Central Neighborhood clinic, which provides primary care to low-income people with limited or no insurance.

A former smoker who has been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and lung disease, Anderson and his wife live on Social Security disability income. Now in their 60s, they are on Medicare, the federal insurance program for senior citizens.

On Sunday, nearly 250 people attended Christ Clinic’s dedication of a new 4,800-square-foot facility at 2410 N. Monroe St. With this move, the clinic staff hopes to triple its current caseload of 3,500 patients in the next three years.

“It means I don’t have to turn away 18 to 20 people seeking care every day,” clinical director Danielle Riggs said. Seventy percent of Christ Clinic’s patients are uninsured working poor. “There is such a great need.”

Founded in 1991 by four physicians, the nonprofit Christ Clinic Inc. has been providing health care at a 1,350-square-foot facility with three examining rooms adjacent to Westminster Presbyterian Church in the state’s lowest-income legislative district.

The new North Monroe clinic has six exam rooms with the potential for three more. The expansion means Christ Clinic also will be able to provide mental health services, said Riggs, one of two full-time nurse practitioners at the clinic.

In addition, three Spokane physicians volunteer at the facility, relieving pressure on the emergency departments of hospitals that absorb millions of dollars in charity care in Spokane County, which has an estimated 45,000 uninsured residents.

In 17 years, Christ Clinic has recorded 70,000 patient visits, Riggs said.

In 1998, the organization’s mission expanded to include Christ Kitchen, where women can learn skills while preparing and selling bread and dried food mixes. Christ Kitchen each year provides job training to 135 low-income women who are struggling to overcome substance abuse, abusive relationships, and physical and mental disabilities.

Christ Clinic’s new facility, adjacent to the Christ Kitchen, is being funded through a $3.1 million capital campaign. So far $2.2 million has been raised, thanks in part to a five-year $500,000 grant from Providence Health and Services and a $250,000 grant from M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, of Vancouver, Wash.

Kevin Graman can be reached at (509)459-5433 or kevingr@spokesman,com.

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