A child looks through a phoropter to get his new prescription during an event to get eye glasses to low-income students from the Houston area in Cypress.
An 11 year old child gets an echocardiogram during a program at a Houston school.
Remote Area Medical, which operates mobile, pop-up clinics providing free dental, vision and medical care to the uninsured and underserved, hosted a clinic at the Vien Thong Tu Buddhist Temple, 17355 Groeschke Road, on Nov. 11 and 12, 2023. More than 400 patients were treated.
People receive care at the Remote Area Medical - RAM two-day mobile clinic setup this weekend at the Chua Viên Thông T? Buddhist Temple in west Houston.
Remote Area Medical, which operates mobile, pop-up clinics providing free dental, vision and medical care to the uninsured and underserved, hosted a clinic at the Vien Thong Tu Buddhist Temple, 17355 Groeschke Road, on Nov. 11 and 12, 2023. More than 400 patients were treated.
Texas Children’s Hospital is closing two clinics that serve low-income families. The Greenspoint location, 700 North Sam Houston Parkway West, will close Dec. 1. The other center, 9700 Bissonnet Street, pictured here, in southwest Houston, closes June 30, 2024.
Closing health care clinics in low-income neighborhoods sounds like a bad idea, which Texas Children’s Hospital is learning after word spread about the planned closure of two of its clinics in the Greenspoint area and in southwest Houston.
A significant portion of residents in those communities live below the federal poverty line, and most are people of color. Where will they go when they get sick, need a routine health screening or prenatal care?
The community’s concern has been understandable. But there's more to the story, according to a Texas Children's Hospital spokesperson.
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FIRST REPORTED HERE: Texas Children's to close two health centers that serve low-income families
These clinics, called Centers for Children and Women, were created a decade ago exclusively for Texas Children's Health Plan members, and the number of patients using them has declined, the spokesperson said. The Health Plan offers low-cost coverage for children through the Children's Health Insurance Program, as well as Medicaid.
"The city of Houston has changed dramatically and, as a result, a significant number of our members have moved away from our locations. Members geographically assigned to the centers have declined by nearly 30% over the last several years," the spokesperson said.
"It became evident that continuing this model of care was no longer the most effective or impactful way to consistently address healthcare inequity in these communities."
The hospital is planning a "more robust and improved model that includes more locations for families to choose from."
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The plan also will give access to health care for more families, not just the ones on the hospital's Health Plan. Details are coming soon, the spokesperson said.
That’s probably not all that reassuring for families who use Texas Children’s Greenspoint clinic, 700 N. Sam Houston Parkway West, which will close on Dec. 1. And let’s hope those details are forthcoming by the time the southwest Houston location, at 9700 Bissonnet, closes on June 30, 2024.
(For the record, my children are longtime Texas Children’s patients, and I’ve been impressed with our doctors at the Texas Children’s Pediatrics Palm Center.)
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Compare the Texas Children’s clinic messaging with that of Remote Area Medical, a Tennessee nonprofit that hosts free pop-up health clinics across the country for low-income people. A few days after the news broke of the Texas Children's closures, Remote Area Medical set up camp at the Viên Thông Tự Buddhist Temple in the Katy area.
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More than 460 patients took advantage of the free medical, dental and vision services during the two-day event. Patients were seen on a first-come, first-served basis. Remote Area Medical also provided them with resources so that they could follow up on their care.
"There are going to be people who can't access health care, who don't have the money or transportation," said Kim Faulkinbury, a clinic coordinator. "We see ourselves as bridging the gap."
At the temple, the first person arrived Friday evening to be first in line when the clinic opened at 6 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 11, Faulkinbury said. Many of the patients spoke Vietnamese and Spanish almost exclusively, and interpreters were on site.
"You hear about kids failing in school. They get glasses so they can see the board, and it changes their life. We're pulling teeth that have rotted so badly that there's an abscess that can kill you. We've found cases of HPV (human papillomavirus) through pap smears. So we know that for many people this might be the only health care they will get," Faulkinbury said.
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The group’s website, ramusa.org, reinforces that message and includes an easy-to-use schedule showing people where they can get free care. The organization has been to Greater Houston several times over the past few years.
What took place at the temple underscores the need for affordable and accessible health care in Houston and across Texas. Our state is one of the worst states for health-care access and affordability, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group. It's also one of only 10 states that have not expanded access to Medicaid.
Texas Children's Hospital leaders must know this as well as anyone, which is what makes its messaging around the clinic closures all the more perplexing.
There's a lesson here. Before you close clinics in communities that might need them most, make certain everyone, especially the patients, know the plan. Texas Children’s hasn’t effectively done that, and the clock is ticking.
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