Without insurance, Fort Worth residents don’t get care. One clinic wants to change that
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Life and death in Fort Worth’s 76104
People in Fort Worth’s 76104 ZIP code on average won’t see their 67th birthday. What is causing the lowest life expectancy rate in Texas? What can be done to help? Read the Star-Telegram’s investigation:
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No doctors, no grocers, no help. Death comes early in these Fort Worth neighborhoods.
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Lea Rodriguez was sick for more than two weeks with the flu, barely leaving her bed and missing an entire Christmas season with her family because she was so ill.
Eventually, Rodriguez’s family grew so worried about her illness that she relented to their requests for her to go to a walk-in clinic. Rodriguez had pneumonia, the doctor told her, and she had waited much too long before seeking medical help, the 44-year-old recalled.
Rodriguez had delayed going to the doctor because, as an undocumented immigrant to the U.S., she wasn’t eligible for any government health insurance programs, and because she didn’t have a green card, she couldn’t legally get a job that could offer her insurance that might help her pay for her medical care.
Now, almost 10 years later and with a green card, Rodriguez still doesn’t have health insurance, but she does have a free option for where she can get her primary care: Mercy Clinic, the small, unassuming free health clinic that operates out of an old house in the parking lot of the Travis Avenue Baptist Church.
Rodriguez and her family are among the hundreds of Fort Worth residents who don’t have health insurance and have no extra cash to pay for their health care out of pocket. Mercy Clinic is one of a small network of clinics that will treat patients without health insurance free of charge.
Now, the clinic is looking forward to build a new, larger clinic on the lot where the old Berry Street Theater currently sits.
Peggy Leitch, the clinic’s executive director, said the next step is a feasibility study so the nonprofit’s leaders can determine the best plans for the space. Existing plans for the clinic would provide for a space of 15,000 square feet, compared to the 1,200 square foot house the volunteers and patients are using now.
Since Mercy Clinic opened its doors in 2013, it has been providing free health and dental care and free prescriptions to anyone who needed it. Initially, the clinic was targeted toward residents of the 76110 ZIP code, where the clinic and church are located. But after research from UT-Southwestern and an investigation from the Star-Telegram revealed that residents of nearby ZIP code 76104 had the lowest life expectancy in the state, they expanded to serve that area as well.
The clinic has continued to provide an option for the Rodriguez family, who would have few other places to get care if it didn’t exist.
Last year, Rodriguez’s husband was experiencing pain in his abdomen, and having trouble going to the bathroom. Because of his family history of cancer, Rodriguez begged her husband to go to the doctor. Eventually, Rodriguez’s relented, and got a free colonoscopy at Mercy Clinic.
The test came back abnormal, so Mercy Clinic providers referred Rodriguez’s husband to Project Access, which helps pay for medical care for people who need surgery but don’t have insurance. The free surgery paid for Rodriguez’s husband to have multiple cysts removed from his colon, his wife said.
Those pre-cancerous cysts would not have been identified without the free screenings offered by Mercy Clinic.
After moving to the U.S. from Mexico, Rodriguez said she and her family didn’t have any information about where to get medical care or how to pay for it.
“It’s so expensive. Many times we are feeling sick or something is a concern but we think ‘I don’t have money, I don’t have insurance,’” Rodriguez said.
Undocumented immigrants aren’t eligible for health insurance through Medicaid, the joint state and federal health program that pays for the health care of people with very low incomes in the U.S. Undocumented immigrants also aren’t allowed to purchase their own health insurance plan through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. When the Rodriguez family moved to Fort Worth, her husband was the only one with a green card, meaning he was the only one who could legally work. But the income he made in construction wasn’t enough for the family to purchase a private plan and it wasn’t enough for them to pay for medical care in cash, Rodriguez said.
Before Mercy Clinic opened in 2013, Rodriguez and her husband skipped all but the most urgent doctor’s visits, like when she had pneumonia. She estimates she went six or seven years without HPV or pap tests and other routine screenings that are traditionally part of a regular annual check up.
Now, Rodriguez works part time at the Travis Avenue Baptist Church. But even with green cards and jobs, health insurance is still too expensive for the couple, making Mercy Clinic the best option for preventive care. Rodriguez’s children received partial coverage through a federal program for kids that don’t qualify for Medicaid. Since her oldest son aged out of that program, he also goes to Mercy Clinic for primary care while he studies civil engineering.
Mercy Clinic has been a blessing for their family, Rodriguez said, because the staff are familiar and welcoming to them.
The staff “feel like more than friends,” Rodriguez said. “They feel like family here.”
This story was originally published October 8, 2021 at 10:00 AM.
