What’s a low-income health-care clinic doing in one of the country’s wealthiest areas?
“Growing,” says Ann Cuneo, executive director of the Community Nurse Health Association in La Grange. “We’re in an affluent area, but we have many low-income pockets. People tend to separate themselves from the working poor–`them’ and `us.’ But `them’ can become `us’ in a second, after an illness, job loss or death. Even if you have health insurance, a catastrophic illness in the family can max out your insurance and wipe out savings.”
Founded in 1921 as a well-baby clinic in the back of a La Grange drugstore, the non-profit organization serves thousands of unemployed and working-poor residents of Oak Brook, LaGrange Park, La Grange, Brookfield, Lyons, Western Springs, Clarendon Hills, Hinsdale, Countryside, La Grange Highlands, Indian Head Park, Hodgkins, Willowbrook and Burr Ridge.
The heart of the association is its pair of medical clinics, adult and pediatric, in downtown La Grange, staffed by physicians (mostly volunteer, except one part-time, paid doctor) and paid nurses. Here, eligible families pay $5 a visit for treatment by pediatricians and family practitioners. The adult clinic is run in partnership with La Grange Memorial Hospital, the pediatric clinic in conjunction with the pediatric department of Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood.
Adjacent to the medical clinics is a full-service dental clinic, staffed by paid and volunteer dentists and assistants. In addition to routine dental care for $5 to $7 a visit, patients can pay more, depending on their resources, for root canals, crowns and bridges. “We do everything but orthodontia and oral surgery,” Cuneo says.
Many of the association’s dental patients are people who have medical insurance but not dental insurance. Dental work improves overall health and more, Cuneo says.
“Patients have told us their dental work has boosted their self-esteem and affected their ability to get jobs,” she says. “In our society, it is not socially acceptable to have front teeth missing, for example. It does affect first impressions on job interviews.”
The association’s medical clinics dispense more than medicine, reports Cheryl Anderson of La Grange, mother of five and foster mom to many children through the years. “They help me find social services for my foster kids,” Anderson says. “If I don’t know where to go for a certain service, they find it for me. If the foster kids go back to their biological parents, and they’re within the association’s service area, they continue to come here. If it weren’t for this organization, I don’t know if I’d want to be a foster mom.”
The association also maintains an emergency food pantry for families in crisis.
“We work closely with churches, the police and social service agencies in the area that refer families to the pantry,” Cuneo says. “We can provide groceries to get them through the day or week, until they get hooked up with other services.”
In the 1980s, the association added its Homemaker Program, which provides assistance to older people in their homes.
“Often, it makes the difference between them staying in their homes or going to an institution,” Cuneo reports. “Volunteer homemakers help them bathe or change their beds, or stay with them while their caretakers leave the house.”
Each fall, the association launches an annual Secret Santa program that provides clothing and toys to about 1,300 children. Volunteer shoppers and packers match gifts with children, according to ages, sizes and requests.
Cuneo’s paid staff of 21, mostly part-time, is augmented by a volunteer corps of hundreds. Among them is Mary Kate Hermann of Western Springs, a retired math teacher.
“For me, it’s a chance to help those less fortunate than I am–people who have jobs but aren’t making enough to pay all the bills,” Hermann says. “We see a lot of people who have been `downsized’ and no longer have benefits. Here, they can get health care, and it’s attentive, cheerful and with respect.”
Cuneo says at least half of the association’s clients are single mothers and their children.
“Many of them have worked hard to find an apartment in the suburbs to provide their children with a good education and safe neighborhoods. But then most of their money is going to rent, which doesn’t leave much for health care,” she says. “Most of the mothers are working, but they do not have benefits. Or they may have only catastrophic health-care policies with high deductibles.”
Cuneo says the association also serves many people she calls the “hidden poor” from middle-class neighborhoods.
“For example, one gentleman came to us in a suit and carrying a briefcase to register his four children for school physicals,” she says. “He had been out of work and couldn’t afford health insurance. He told me he had donated to organizations like ours, but he never thought he’d be here. A year later, he found work. But, until then, he took advantage of our Secret Santa program, the dental clinic and the food pantry.”
The association, with an annual budget of $1.2 million, is funded by grants, individual and corporate donations, fundraisers and proceeds from the Carousel Shop. In addition to tax-deductible monetary donations, Cuneo says it accepts donations of toys and clothing for its Secret Santa program, non-perishable food for the food pantry and items for its resale shop, including furniture, clothing, household items, toys and books.
Cuneo echoes many charity directors when she reports that many of those who donate the most are those who can least afford it.
“One older woman sends us $3 cash every year, even though she’s just living off her Social Security checks,” she says. “People tell me I must see the saddest things here, and I do. But I also see so many caring volunteers, youth learning to help their neighbors and people who turn around and give money to the food pantry after they no longer need the pantry themselves.”
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For more information on the Community Nurse Health Association, call 708-352-0081.
