Christmas shopping for needy families, and providing medical care to our community.
Meeting notes for the Dec. 9 Zoom meeting of the Rotary Club of Clover Park.
Guests included our speakers David Flentge and Tiffany Bass, and old friend Ernie Heller.
Announcements
Sunshine Report: David Cotant got a total knee replacement, and is doing well enough to attend the Zoom meeting.
Christmas Shopping: Joyce Oubre updated members on how the plan is moving forward for our club helping West Pierce Cares with their Christmas gift shopping program for needy families. The Target gift cards should be going out this week to the Rotarians who have volunteered to help with this effort. Any questions should be directed to your team leaders.
Kerri Pedrick asked for Rotarians to help with the Communities In Schools program distributing food to students. They do weekly deliveries to 215 students, involving food backpacks delivered on Friday mornings. And next week they will be doing bigger bags for the Christmas break. Sign up to help at www.lakewoodcis.org.
Future Programs:
Dec. 23 Bring your favorite Christmas story to share
Jan. 6 Michelle Douglas, CEO of Emergency Food Network
Jan. 20 Heather Hinds and James Venturini, from The Lakewood Playhouse
Fun And Fines
General Ed Trobaugh noted that Ramona Hinton had paid the fine for her recent birthday, and so did Sydna Koontz. Under Covid, Rotarians do not seem to be traveling as much, cutting down on the opportunity to pay fines for their trips.
This Week’s Program
Community Health Care is in its 50th anniversary year, serving patients in 5 health centers around Pierce County, including in Lakewood. 4 of those centers also offer dental care.
Dr. Tiffany Bass, DDS, kicked off the discussion, talking about the health care needs of low income families, and how those needs sometimes go unmet. CHC never turns away a patient for an inability to pay. Tiffany has been with CHC since 2013, and is a UW graduate for both her undergraduate degree and for dental school.
Also presenting was David Flentge, the President and CEO of CHC since 1995. He previously worked for Greater Lakes Mental Health, and has a master’s degree in social work.
Covid has obviously had a big impact on their operations. Dental care was shut down for a while except for emergencies, but is now back up and running. For medical care, they are doing it 25% in person, and 75% via telemedicine. So far CHC has administered 7,398 Covid tests, with 8% of those positive.
As a “federally qualified health center” (FQHC), CHC gets $5 million a year from the U.S. government to support its operations. It got an additional $4 million this year for Covid related issues. Medicaid also pays for services given to eligible patients. 10% of patients are on Medicare. 8% have private insurance.
Attracting medical staff can be a challenge for an organization designed to help low income patients. A lot of medical staff are actually attracted to the mission of helping the needy in the community. One additional attractant is that there are federal and state programs designed to help providers pay back student loans. Some of the providers come for that, and end up staying because they enjoy the mission.
CHC also is running a 3-year residency program for new medical school graduates, in family practice medicine. This program helps to address the nationwide shortage of family practice doctors willing to serve as primary care physicians (PCPs). The residents (AKA apprentice doctors) train for 3 years under the tutelage of “attending” physicians.
And Finally…
Here is some advice on social distancing.
