Low-income Austin clinic to reopen

AUSTIN (KXAN) - One in five women in Austin live in poverty, which means they must rely on fee clinics for health care.

That's why CommUnityCare was proud to announce next week's reopening its East Clinic location after a $2.5 million renovation at the facility at 211 Comal St.

CommUnityCare, a city-county partnership to provide medical services to low-income people, received $1.6 million in federal funding for the renovation, with an additional $900,000 coming from Travis County health care district, Central Health.

The clinic has a new look, a new mission and new sense of pride for the neighborhood.

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"The low-income families, the families that are not from here, it's some where for them to go and not feel left out and still get the care that they need, " medical assistant Heather Lara said during a preview tour on Wednesday.

The clinic will have more exam rooms, more nurses stations and equipment to handle the growing need for treatment for low in-come families and individuals.

"They go to the emergency room for a cold and spend so much more money going to the ER, not knowing they could have gone to one of our care clinics, " said Elizabeth Marrero of CommUnityCare.

The clinic will treat anyone, even those with no insurance.

Financial assistance will be on site and anyone who just walks in with no insurance will pay a fee of $95.

"You hear the stories all the time, I felt a lump but I can't afford to do anything, " Marrero said.

That's why the clinic will offer an array of new test including cervical cancer screenings, prenatal stress test, prenatal ultra sounds, colonoscopy and many others because prevention has become the new medicine.

"If you don't catch it early enough, the outcome are deadly, " said Marrero.

CommUnityCare has 22 locations around Austin and can see more than 270,000 patients each year.

With so many patients, the eight doctors, which is two more then they had before, will appreciate their new computers and computer tablets.

"If we get a patient from another clinic we know what exactly is going on, what medications they're taking , what they were last seen for, " Marrero said.