Senior clinic hours cut

Art Nadler

Tuesday, March 9, 1999 | 11:27 a.m.

Facing an outstanding debt of $1.3 million, the administrator of a senior citizens complex said he had no choice but to limit the hours of operation of an in-house medical clinic.

Ken Moore, chief executive officer of the non-profit Community Health Centers of Southern Nevada, told elderly residents at the Cannon Senior Center, 340 N. 11th St., his reasoning behind his decision Monday. He had replaced a popular physician last month and reduced the clinic's hours from five days a week to two.

Moore said he made the decision based on a cash deficit of $250,000 in December and the more than $1 million in outstanding debt accumulated at the Cannon Center and two other clinics at 916 W. Owens Ave. and 67 E. Lake Mead Drive in Henderson.

Moore said Dr. James Laird was asked to stay on, but that he would have to see as many as 25 patients a day each of two days instead of the 11 he was treating per day. Laird, 80, insisted that with geriatric patients, that quota was impossible.

"I'm very strict about my standards," Laird said. "Ken saying he offered me two days a week is a lie. He offered me one day a week. You can't see 25 patients a day in geriatrics."

Laird said senior citizens have multiple symptoms that require a minimum of a half-hour for each patient.

Currently, a physician's assistant is seeing senior citizens, but many of the residents say she doesn't spend enough time with them and they have to wait five or six hours to see her.

The seniors, packed inside the standing-room-only recreational area inside the center, yelled that they wanted Laird back. But he slowly walked to the podium and spoke softly, telling them news they didn't want to hear.

"I feel I would only have about 18 months to two years of good medical work left," Laird said, his voice quivering with emotion. "I deeply appreciate your gratitude for what little I could actually do."

Moore said he would try to find another geriatrician and hoped that someone or a group of businesses could come forward and pay his $1.3 million debt.