Grace Clinic celebrates 20 years of providing free healthcare to uninsured Tri-Citians

In June, Grace Clinic celebrates its 20th anniversary. This milestone is a testament to what can be accomplished when a group of people come together to do good work. In those 20 years, the clinic has provided nearly 100,000 patient visits at no cost to them. That’s 100,000 times someone walked through our door to access care that they probably wouldn’t have otherwise.

Years ago, we started asking patients where they would go without Grace Clinic. We weren’t surprised that a significant portion said they would go to a hospital emergency room. After all, emergency rooms are obligated to see people regardless of their insurance coverage or ability to pay. What did surprise us, though, was that the largest group, more than half, told us they wouldn’t go anywhere.

The fact that more than half of our patients wouldn’t seek care if Grace Clinic weren’t here is an incredibly powerful demonstration of the role the clinic plays in the community. But it also demonstrates something else.

Asking for help can be hard. When you have a need, and there is a cost you can’t afford, it’s uncomfortable. But through the generosity of our community and the commitment of more than 200,000 volunteer hours, we have been able to serve as a healthcare safety net to meet these needs.

Starting out seeing medical patients for four hours on Saturdays in the basement of a Pasco church, the clinic was envisioned as a place where those with limited income and no health insurance could access free care.

Since those early days, the clinic has expanded both the hours that it operates, now five days per week, and the scope of services that it provides — including medical, dental, and mental health services for those in our community who do not have other good options.

There is one other very important thing to understand about the clinic’s role in the community. While anyone can go to the emergency room, regardless of ability to pay, that is not the place to get the care that Grace Clinic provides. Particularly for our patients with chronic diseases, the emergency room is the absolute wrong place to get care. Their staff are not trained to help someone manage a chronic condition like diabetes.

A number of years ago, a young woman came to us for the first time. She was in her late twenties and had type 1 diabetes, so she was insulin-dependent. She told us she had been going to the emergency room every month for the previous year, because they gave her insulin that she needed to live. But she was always afraid that might end some day.

Someone suggested that she come to Grace Clinic. She was literally in tears of joy by the time she left. Not only could we help her have a much more secure source of insulin, but we were also able to help her manage her diabetes, improving her health and reducing the risk of complications like blindness, kidney failure, and amputations.

While we received some short-term COVID financial support, we are still primarily funded by the local community. We live in a generous community, and Grace Clinic’s 20-year legacy is a shining example of what this community can do.

Since opening, Grace Clinic has served nearly 13,000 Benton and Franklin county residents. This resource has helped people maintain and improve their health, address conditions that if left untreated would result in catastrophic consequences, address debilitating mental health issues, and more, all while doing so in a manner that protects the dignity of the people we serve.

Stay tuned. In the fall, we will be launching Grace Clinic 2.0 for the next 20 years.