MASH clinic closes its doors

Tuesday, June 18, 2002 | 11:30 a.m.

Sheila Ward learned early in her job as a licensed practical nurse at the MASH Village Medical Clinic that some patients have special needs, and not all of them are medical.

"I once asked a woman to take off her coat so that I could take her blood pressure, and when I turned around I saw she didn't have a stitch on under that coat," Ward said Tuesday.

"I was shocked. I had worked as a nurse at a hospital in the Bronx for 35 years and I never saw anything like that."

Today at 4 p.m., the people of Southern Nevada who have nothing or next to nothing will have even less when the MASH clinic locks its doors after two years of serving the homeless and otherwise poor at no charge.

The clinic is closing as part of the shutting down of all services at the five-year-old MASH Village, because of a lack of funding.

"Yes, this is a very sad day for us," said Kar Sei Cheung, a physician's assistant who, as a full-time paid medical staffer, has worked alongside several volunteer doctors at the clinic since last August.

"We are trying to get some patients help through Social Services and hope they will find an appropriate clinic as soon as possible. Many of our patients are homeless and have no insurance. They do not have many options."

The MASH clinic sees on average 30 patients a day and 500 a month. The clinic also has worked to get insurance for a number of them.

Ward, the only nurse on staff at the MASH clinic, said the facility's closing will result in "hospital emergency rooms getting a lot more crowded, because that is the only place many of these people will be able to go,"

Brian Brooks, director of the Health Care for the Homeless Program that runs the free Nevada Health Centers clinic at D Street and Wilson Avenue, says it is a setback when any program that serves the homeless is lost.

"We hate to see any clinic close, especially one that treats patients for free," said the longtime local homeless rights activist whose federally funded clinic also does not charge. "But we will work with any of those patients who come to us to treat them and get them insured."

The Nevada Health Centers D Street clinic currently sees 15 to 20 patients per day, but can only handle 28, Brooks said. The company's other three clinics also treat the poor, but charge a sliding scale fee.

Herman Sweet, 49, a 15-year Las Vegas resident who has worked as a newspaper inserter for the Los Angeles Times and Las Vegas Sun but now is jobless, was in the clinic Tuesday seeking treatment for high blood pressure.

"I went to the plasma center on Fremont Street and they told me my blood pressure was too high for me to give plasma so I came here for help," Sweet said.

"I haven't given much thought to what I will do when this clinic closes. I just don't know what I will do."

Cheung signed Sweet up for an anti-smoking program and provided him with a salt-restricted diet to stabilize his blood pressure.

Walter Burbridge came to the free clinic with a badly infected tooth. Ward sent him to a local dentist who extracts bad teeth for free.

As for Cheung and Ward, their futures also are uncertain, as neither has secured future employment.

"I tell my patients I will soon be in the same position as you -- no job," Cheung said. "Some of them have kindly told me they would let me share their space in the shelter."