Ousted medical firm says new group not answer for seniors

Shaunta Grimes

Monday, Nov. 29, 1999 | 11:55 a.m.

The medical clinic at the Howard W. Cannon Senior Center, now run by a private company, will have a full-time doctor by Wednesday. But a spokesman for the Community Health Centers, which used to run the troubled clinic, says a for-profit company may not be the best thing for the senior community the clinic serves.

Larry Gamell, director for community relations for Community Health Centers, said today he has doubts that a for-profit clinic will make it in the downtown clinic at Stewart Avenue and 11th Street, given the demographics of the clinic's patients.

"We are nonprofit and we had a hard time," Gamell said. "They have looked at the demographics and feel they can make a profit. Perhaps they see it differently."

The new company running the clinic, Solutions, will accept patients' insurance, including Medicaid and Medicare, but will not offer a sliding scale of fees as the Community Health Center did.

The Community Health Center, which ran the Cannon Medical Center for 10 years, was ousted from the clinic in June after it had reduced the number of days a doctor was available from five to two, then hired a physician's assistant to work those days. After complaints were received, the center brought back a medical doctor.

The housing authority put the clinic to bid in August. The center participated in the bid process, promising to bring a doctor back five days a week, Gamell said. "We would have brought a doctor back at that time anyway. We had started a nationwide search for a geriatric specialist," he said.

The center lost the bid to run the Cannon Medical Center to a company called Solutions, formed by Mel Velasquez, former chief of mental health for Chicago, and his partners Alejandro Alverez and George Cantu. The new clinic is a for-profit venture that will provide services to anyone in the area, senior or not, Velasquez said.

Velasquez ran a psychiatric program at the Community Health Center until it was cut for budgetary reasons. Dr. Austin Moody Sr., the doctor who was providing two-day-a-week service at the center, will become the Cannon Medical Center full-time physician.

"Dr. Moody had gained a following here, so we decided if he was available, we would ask him to come back," Velasquez said.

The Community Health Center still runs a clinic on Owens Avenue providing health care to low income and homeless patients.

"There was a lot of political maneuvering," Gamell said of the bid process. "There were some people who just didn't want us there, and we aren't."

Gamell said the reduction of days at the clinic earlier this year and use of a physician's assistant were temporary conditions meant to give the clinic a chance to step back and reevaluate its goals. He said at all times patients could have used the doctors at the primary facility on Owens Avenue, which is open six days a week.

A new facility is being built for Community Health Center at Martin Luther King Boulevard and Vegas Drive by the cities of Las Vegas and North Las Vegas and Clark County. The center will rent the space for $1 a year, Gamell said. The new facility will allow the center to expand its dental department from two chairs to 10.