Community clinic faces budget cuts

Jenny Marder

Proposed cuts to the state budget could mean layoffs and fewer

services at the Huntington Beach Community Clinic and the closure

four Orange County health clinics, which would greatly over-burden

the already busy Surf City clinic.

Huntington’s health care alternative will likely feel the crunch,

but is not in danger of going under since it gains equal support

through fund-raising efforts such as the annual duck-a-thon, said

Jacqueline Cherewick, chief executive officer of the clinic.

“Our job is to do more with less,” Cherewick said.

For many of its counterparts, however, the recommended $26 million

in cuts to the state’s mental and health care services could mean the

end.

With the state needing to cut total of $130 million from the

budget, the Huntington Beach Community Clinic could be facing

anywhere from $250,000 to $867,000 in cuts, Cherewick said.

The clinic gets $2.2 million of its $6.4-million annual budget

from state funding.

Officials at the clinic are bracing for the blow, which could mean

cutbacks in vital services such as general primary care and

preventive health care and reductions in staff.

Many patients from the closed county clinics would have no choice

but to use the community clinic, potentially increasing the wait for

an appointment from five to six weeks to eight or nine weeks, said

Isabel Becerra, director of policy and development for the Coalition

of Orange County Community Clinics.

The motto at community clinics is that providing health care early

on will prevent later illnesses.

“If you invest early on, you save money in the long run,” Becerra

said.

Of more than 20,000 people who use the clinic annually, 92% are

below federal poverty guidelines, with 42% Latino, 46% Caucasian and

8% Asian. Children younger than 18 make up 36% of patients. Most

patients are working people who don’t have access to health

insurance, Cherewick said.

The community clinic has three branches -- the Medical Center,

which provides primary care, the West County Counseling Center for

mental health care and the Community Care Dental Center.

Slightly fewer than half of the patients at Surf City’s community

clinic travel from cities outside of Huntington Beach, such as

Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Westminster and Santa Ana, to use the

clinic’s dental and mental health services. Patients pay on a sliding

scale based on income and family size.

Officials at the clinic are scraping to come up with additional

fund-raising and grants to fill the hole and to avoid cutting staff

and services.

“We’re going to try not to do that with all of our heart and

soul,” Cherewick said.

Of the clinic’s total budget, 34% comes from state funding, 32%

from fund-raising and private sources, 4% from federal sources, 3%

from county sources, 4% from local sources, 9% from donated

professional services and 14% from patient fees.

“Everywhere we can turn over a rock,” Cherewick said.

This is all happening at a time when pharmaceutical costs are on

the rise and chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension and

cardiac problems are on the rise, Cherewick said. The cuts are also

affecting county services that patients in the clinic use, such as

county care for homeless and mentally ill patients, she said.

“The whole problem will put more people into an overburdened city

already,” she said. “We don’t have capacity to absorb these

patients.”