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Elks Lodge Gives Boost to Clinic: The Organization Donates $400,000 to Improve Services Offered to Uninsured Children at a Facility Run By St. Joseph Medical Center.

Posted on: Saturday, 29 April 2006, 12:00 CDT

By Erin Negley, Reading Eagle, Pa.

Apr. 29--Uninsured Berks County children with broken bones used to travel out of the county to see orthopedic surgeons who accepted Medicaid.

Then St. Joseph Medical Center created a clinic to help Medicaid patients of all ages in need of orthopedic care.

The year-old clinic is already booked solid, and children on Medicaid also have limited local choices for other specialists, such as cardiologists, dermatologists and allergists.

But thanks to $400,000 in seed money from Reading Elks Lodge 115, the situation could be improving soon.

The donation, which was announced Friday, will be made Wednesday as part of the hospital's activities for Cover the Uninsured Week, May 1-7.

St. Joseph Medical Center officials said the money will be used to create a "kid-friendly" space at the Sixth and Walnut streets campus, help fund a coordinator to recruit physicians and cover costs of supplies, equipment and procedures.

Cardiology and orthopedics services will be offered in two to three months, hospital spokesman Michael B. Jupina said.

Eventually the Reading Elks Pediatric Clinic will offer physicians specializing in neurology, obesity, allergies, asthma, dermatology, orthopedics and ear, nose and throat, Jupina said.

The clinic will be open to children with little or no insurance from birth through age 18.

"The need of people on medical assistance is starting to outstrip our ability to meet it," Jupina said. "We're trying to establish this here, so the people don't have to travel outside."

The clinic also will address the problem of underinsured children without a family doctor going to the emergency room for episodic care.

"People who don't have that relationship (with a family doctor) end up putting off the little problem until it becomes a big problem," Jupina said.

The Elks will donate money from its Crippled Kiddies Fund, which was started with donations in 1925, former officer David C. Sassaman said.

"It made sense that our money would do more for the kids and the community by helping that program," he said. "We don't want to see some child be pushed aside and not have a nice life."

While the donation will get the clinic started, the hospital needs to find other funds to sustain and expand it, Jupina said.

"This is a great step, but this issue is not going away," he said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Reading Eagle, Pa.

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Source: Reading Eagle

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