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Clinic celebrates 15 years of bridging the health care gap.
The Volunteers in Medicine organization is marking its 15th year on Hilton Head Island. “Everybody in town knows the story of Jack McConnell starting up this clinic,” said Margie Maxwell, VIM’s director of development and public relations.
But the role VIM plays in keeping the island’s workforce healthy is probably less known, she said.
“Local employers are very big supporters of this clinic,” she said, because many find the cost of providing health care to employees is prohibitive.
After McConnell, a retired doctor, moved to Hilton Head to play golf, he realized the working poor, predominantly Native Islanders, had little or no access to health care, Maxwell said. Generally the only health care they received came in visits to the Emergency Room, where doctors could only provide treatment to stabilize a patient.
McConnell undertook a two-year process to gather retired medical professionals together, and satisfy requirements of the state licensing board to qualify the clinic for malpractice insurance.
The clinic opened in 1993 in a building owned by the then Hilton Head Hospital, seeing 1,000 patients in the first year and mainly administering immunizations to children.
In its early years the clinic became an urgent care center for Native Islanders.
“If they woke up in the morning and didn’t feel well they came to the clinic,” Maxwell said.
But VIM’s mission grew as it came to treat chronic illnesses like diabetes and hypertension.
Today the clinic has some 11,000 patients and logged nearly 31,000 patient visits in the last year. Maxwell said that about 1,300 local businesses rely on VIM to provide health care to their workers.
“Seventy percent of our patients are employed, some with two jobs, and can barely afford rent, let alone health insurance,” she said.
Another 20 percent of VIM’s clientele is made up of children and students, and the remaining 10 percent are unemployed.
Over the years, Maxwell said, VIM has moved from merely providing urgent care to islanders, with 80 percent of patient visits now scheuled appointments.
“Now we have gotten a handle on the physical health of the community,” she said, through screenings and five disease-management programs.
In addition to gynecological and mammography screenings, VIM provides dental and mental health screenings. The clinic sees 5,000 children a year for dental exams and cleaning, and 600 women for mammograms.
VIM has enlisted a corps of some 400 volunteers, including 150 physicians, 100 nurses, and associated support personnel including pharmacists, lab technicians, dental hygienists and others. Only nine staffers are paid. Because volunteers donate their time and expertise, VIM can hold the cost of providing care to around $52 per patient visit.
VIM’s efforts toward preventative care and managing illnesses pays big benefits for the island’s tourism and service industries.
“ We all pay the bill if there’s no access to health care in this community,” Maxwell said.
According to Maxwell, absenteeism can lead to dissatisfied customers and morale issues among other employees. Programs that help keep children well and in school also allow their parents to go to work to support their families, she added.
VIM doesn’t take any state, federal or local tax money or United Way funds. A real grass roots effort, 60 percent of VIM’s funding comes from individual donations. VIM also relies on the support of the Long Cove Club Community Endowment, the Zonta Club, the Avon Foundation and the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation Lowcountry Affiliate. Maxwell said that The Bargain Box, one of VIM’s earliest contributors, “continues to support us in a big way,” having donated “well over half a million dollars to help us stay open.” And today, McConnell’s idea of extending health care to everyone has spread across the country, with 62 clinics in 21 states.
For more information regarding the Volunteers in Medicine, please call (843) 681-6612, or visit vimclinic.org.
