The entrance to the Riverside Health Clinic is on the west side of the old Three Rivers High School, a building that now serves as the home of Riverside Church.

Riverside Health Clinic in Three Rivers, which opened in October 2002, continues to serve the health care needs of the uninsured and underinsured in St. Joseph County – and the demand for its services is growing.

Executive Director Jennifer Hagerty said, “It’s amazing how many people that we’ve seen this year through the clinic.”

Riverside Health Clinic, located at Riverside Church, is a free health clinic to serve anyone who is within or below 200 percent of poverty.  Hagerty said, “It started in 2002 as a mission of the church and it started off very simple at first, just trying to help people get medications that they couldn’t afford and it’s just evolved from there over the years.  We provide medications and sometimes we can have the ability to provide dental care, things of that sort.”  And Hagerty said, “We team with other community agencies such as Community Mental Health or DHS or even the local food banks to get people the services that they need.”

Hagerty said the clinic continues to be a mission of the church, “but has kind of taken on a life of its own and become more independent.  A lot of administration and structure is all run through the  clinic and not through the church.  Our finances are all run through the clinic and not through the church.  We still receive a lot of assistance through the church as far as volunteers and in kind as far as space and things like that, but we also are a little bit of a separate entity all on our own.”

Jennifer Hagerty is the executive director of the Riverside Health Clinic, a post she has held since January of this year.

Riverside Church is located in the old Three Rivers High School at 207 East Michigan Avenue and the clinic is below the gym in the girls’ old locker room.  Hagerty said, “It’s tight quarters sometimes when we get a lot of patients in here, but it’s nice.  We have enough room to do what we need to do and help serve our community.”

Hagerty said, “We’re only open on Tuesdays, occasionally a Wednesday morning, but Tuesdays, and in the morning our nurse does appointments for picking up medications that people get through our pharmacy program.  Our registration starts at 5:30 until 7, but we are here until the last person is seen.  Sometimes, on doctor nights, we can be here until 11 seeing patients.”  A doctor is present on the second and fourth Tuesdays each month.  (Jennifer_Hagerty_audio clip – 1:31)

The clinic serves people from all over St. Joseph County.  Hagerty said, “We have 40 percent from Three Rivers, but the rest of our patients are from throughout the whole county.  The next biggest number comes from Sturgis, which is 28 percent of our patients, but we do see people – even from Burr Oak, from Colon, from Mendon – throughout the whole county.”

The Riverside Health Clinic utilizes space in what was once the girls’ locker room, under the gym at the old high school building in Three Rivers.

In these difficult economic times, the clinic has experienced an increase in volume.  Hagerty said, “We’ve had about 300 more patients this year than last year so far.  We’ve had approximately 1,400 patient visits so far and it works out to be about 30 patients a week.  Some weeks are slower than others, but we have seen a very large increase in people coming to see the doctor.”  She said, “We’ve had 256 doctor visits so far this year and, if you think the doctor only comes twice a month, and they’re only here for a couple of hours, so they see about 15 people in just a couple of hours.  We thank our patients for being so patient with us and waiting for the doctor, and we sincerely thank our doctors for seeing that high of a volume of patients.”

Including Hagerty, the clinic has three paid staff, all of whom are part-time, and has over 40 volunteers who help them.  She said, “Our volunteers come, sometimes once a month, sometimes every week, so it just varies on their schedule, but we are always in need of nurse volunteers and doctors, especially, but, other than that, we have just wonderful volunteers here helping us out.”

Funding for the clinic comes from a variety of sources including the church.  Hagerty said, “We also rely on grants and foundations to help us out.  The past year we’ve gotten a grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan.  They support a lot of the free clinics in Michigan.  Unfortunately, this year our funding is down 60 percent from last year and our need is up.  A lot of the local foundations could not supply grants.  A lot of grants that are out there didn’t fund for 2009 and, possibly, not for 2010 so we are really needing a lot of support from our community.  That’s what we’re going to be trying to do, hopefully, next year is get some more support.”

For more information about the clinic, volunteer opportunities, and financial contributions, call the clinic at (269) 273-3744.  Financial contributions can be sent to the attention of the Riverside Health Clinic at 207 East Michigan Avenue, Three Rivers, Michigan 49093.

Hagerty has a master’s degree in social work and said, “I’ve been a resident of St. Joseph County pretty much my entire life.  I’ve moved out a couple of years here and there, but I’ve always come back, so I know the area, (am) very familiar with it, and just feel real passion for serving the population that we serve – the underserved and, sometimes, the ignored population of our community.”

To learn more about the Riverside Health Clinic, click on the following link to hear a “River Country Conversation” with Jennifer Hagerty, an interview conducted by Bruce Snook:  Jennifer_Hagerty_interview (13:31 – 12.3 MB)