Cedar Rapids’ free clinics reach major anniversaries

Cedar Rapids — Cedar Rapids’ two free medical clinics are celebrating milestone anniversaries this month.

In May, the Community Health Free Clinic, 947 14th Ave. SE, is marking its 20th anniversary. The religiously-affiliated His Hands Free Clinic, 1245 Second Ave SE, is reaching its 30th anniversary this month.

Over the course of their decades-long histories, both nonprofit health care organizations have felt the impacts of a changing national health policy firsthand and have adjusted to meet the evolving needs of patients within their community.

After starting out as small operations, both facilities have grown over the years to offer more services beyond traditional primary care. Today, in addition to family medicine, both clinics offer dental care, diabetes education and prescription assistance as well as many other services.

As the need continues to evolve, officials say they don’t anticipate a future any time soon in which a free medical clinic is not needed.

History of free clinics in Cedar Rapids

Free medical clinics provide health care services to those who are uninsured and under-insured, including those who may be experiencing a gap in their health care coverage or who need services that’s not covered by their health insurance.

But around 30 years ago, a free clinic did not exist anywhere in Linn County.

Dr. James Bell, now the medical director of His Hands Free Clinic and a hospice and palliative medicine specialist at UnityPoint Health-Cedar Rapids, attended a Christian medical and dental conference in 1991, where he was challenged to help provide health care to low-income residents in their communities.

When he returned home, Bell said the effort to open a space to provide free medical care to the community already was underway.

“It was a community effort,” Bell said.

That effort culminated a year later, in May 1992, into the opening of what was then called the Cedar Rapids Free Medical Clinic. The clinic opened within the Jane Boyd Community House, operating a few hours twice a month and seeing about 200 people in its first year, said Dawn Brouwers, His Hands Free Clinic executive director.

The operation continued to grow, and by 2001 the clinic had seen more than 5,000 patients.

In 2002, patient need continued to swell at the free clinic, prompting officials to begin a search for a new site that could accommodate the demand.

By then, philosophical differences were pulling the clinic in two different directions, which ultimately led the clinic to split into two organizations that same year. Those clinics became His Hands Free Clinic and the Community Health Free Clinic.

Darlene Schmidt, who had been executive director of the clinic since 1995, was among the officials to step away to form the Cedar Rapids Free Medical Clinic.

Becoming a secular organization offered more funding opportunities, and Schmidt and other officials wanted to refocus efforts to prioritize the health care of patients, said Jamie Henley, chief operating officer of Community Health Free Clinic.

“There were just these two different opinions of how to best provide care in the community, and so in 2002 that kind of culminated in (Schmidt) and Dr. William Galbraith saying, ‘We want to split away, and we want to form an organization that’s solely focused on taking care of patients and their health care needs,’” he said.

Schmidt is now executive director of the Community Health Free Clinic, which opened its new facility in February 2004 — thanks to a $1.48 million grant from the Hall-Perrine Foundation. Within the first year, the clinic served 10,000 patients, according to officials.

Demand for free clinics grows

In the years that followed 2002, Community Health Free Clinic and His Hands Free Clinic continued to grow.

To date, His Hands Free Clinic — which aims to provide ministry in addition to health care — has served around 40,000 people.

“We’ve grown over the years with the need in community, but the spirit and ministry of service we provide is the same,” Bell said.

The COVID-19 pandemic slowed patient counts slightly, with unique patient visits ranging between 800 to 1,000 a year, Brouwers said. Officials expect those patient totals to increase to pre-pandemic levels.

The Community Health Free Clinic has served more than 59,000 unique patient visits in the past 20 years, according to its 2021 annual report. That includes more than 560,500 total services provided across the clinic between Dec. 2, 2002, and Jan. 1, 2022.

These patients fall across the spectrum, but for the majority of those who visit His Hands Free Clinic this year, they typically are in the “uninsured” category, Brouwers said. That means they may not work enough hours at their job to qualify for health insurance or otherwise “fall through the cracks.”

Many others are immigrants, refugees or unemployed individuals.

Not only did patient counts continue to increase over the years, but the needs of those patients also changed.

In addition to its walk-in clinic, Community Health Free Clinic began offering dental care and vision services.

Over the years, His Hands Free Clinic also began providing chiropractic, physical therapy and gynecology services.

In recent years, the need for affordable prescriptions became apparent as the climbing cost of drugs became too much for the populations served by free medical clinics. In response, His Hands Free Clinic and the Community Health Free Clinic stepped up to dispense medications to patients in need.

In 2021 alone, Community Health Free Clinic provided $5.3 million in free prescriptions to patients.

Schmidt said it’s important for the free clinic to adjust to meet patient needs as they change because the organization’s mission “is taking care of patients.”

What has been surprising, Henley said, has been the evolution of health care. Today, the focus is much more on holistic care than it was in the early days of the Cedar Rapids Free Medical Clinic. That includes helping patients obtain housing assistance or SNAP benefits.

“We’ve seen health care change over the last 20 years,” Henley said. “Now, it’s really looking at that holistic approach and saying, ‘How can we help this patient get better on all fronts?’”

The Community Health Free Clinic will mark its 20th anniversary with a banquet at 7 p.m., Thursday, May 12, at the Cedar Rapids Marriott, 1200 Collins Rd NE.

There, event organizers will unveil a new book chronicling the history of the clinic and its impact on the community. For more details and to RSVP for the event, visit communityhfc.org/20th-rsvp.

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