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VIM’s patients are our neighbors: the folks who landscape our gardens, manicure the golf courses, staff the kitchens in the restaurants, build our homes, stock the grocery shelves, serve tourists and help us purchase new clothes. In fact, 70 percent of Volunteers in Medicine’s patients are employed by more than 1,375 businesses that keep our community functioning and thriving. What they have in common is a need for health care.
This year VIM volunteers will serve more than 31,000 patient visits. Since March 2009, more than 1,000 new patients have been welcomed to the clinic. And, 16 years after Dr. Jack McConnell inspired the opening of the clinic on Hilton Head Island, 74 free medical clinics have opened across the country based on our model.
What VIM has learned over the years is that it takes the extraordinary support of an entire community to fulfill the clinic’s mission: “To understand and serve the health needs of the medically underserved population who lives and/or works on Hilton Head Island and Daufuskie Island and their households.”
“Our operating budget is $1.6 million, of which 88.5 percent goes directly to patient care,” said Dr. Frank Bowen, VIM’s executive medical director. “However, we need hundreds of thousands more in donated services from this community to treat our patients. What happens outside the clinic’s walls is as important as what happens within.”
Area health care providers such as the Outpatient Surgery Center of Hilton Head, Southern Imaging, Biopsy Diagnostics, Coastal Gastroenterology and others, including scores of surgeons, physicians, dentists and other medical specialists, continually offer services at greatly reduced costs to VIM’s patients.
For example, Dr. Virginia Hermann, a renowned cancer specialist and professor at MUSC, offers guidance to VIM’s breast cancer patients. Drs. George and Julie Camp and Dr. Michael Eibling have opened their dental offices to VIM’s pediatric patients.
And VIM doesn’t wait for patients to come to them. Outreach programs targeting diabetes, breast cancer awareness and weight management are regularly offered in the community’s churches. Health care education and dental exams are provided through the schools and students receive immunizations and physicals for athletic program participation.
“We don’t just treat illness,” said Margie Maxwell, director of development and public relations. “We follow our patients through treatment and recovery to help them maintain good health.”
More than 450 local residents attend weekly diabetes and high blood pressure clinics Enendocrinologists, family practitioners, ophthalmologists, diabetic educators, nurses and psychologists work to teach diabetic patients how to manage their disease.
VIM works closely with many area organizations. This community effort has been the inspiration for the theme for the Annual Giving Campaign: “Better Together.” Individual donations account for about 60 percent of VIM’s annual operating budget.
“We call our local supporters our Circle of Caring,” said Maxwell. “There is no way we could be as successful in keeping our neighbors healthy without them.”
Grateful patients give back by maintaining the clinic buildings, power washing, providing plumbing, landscaping and carpentry services. Donated cleaning services save VIM an estimated $25,000 per year. Patients leave cash averaging $1,200 per month in the donation jar.
VIM also depends on grants for support. Most recently a grant from the Long Cove Club Community Endowment Fund has refurnished the children’s room at the clinic. Because VIM does not accept any government funding, it operates free of political influence.
