Supervisors OK Health Clinic Expansion : Simi Valley: Plan will increase the facility’s hours, space and the number of doctors.

After weathering cutbacks in hours, cramped quarters and near-closure, the public health clinic that offers care to an escalating number of needy east Ventura County residents finally got a financial boost Tuesday.

The Board of Supervisors approved a $528,000 plan to add physicians, increase hours and move the 19-year-old Simi Valley clinic to a new site twice as big as the present facility.

County health officials, who hope to have the site renovated and open by January, say the family-care center will operate full time and employ as many as four physicians. The new facility will be located at a shopping center at Alamo and Tapo streets.

The clinic now provides prenatal care, checkups and general medical treatment for more than 2,400 people a year with one physician and one nurse on staff. About 70% of the clinic’s patients are on Medi-Cal.

Although the clinic originally opened as a full-time center, it has operated on a part-time schedule since the late 1970s when county health funds came up short. During a health budget crisis in 1987, strong community support saved the center from shutting down for good.

But in recent years, a dramatic increase in the number of east county Medi-Cal recipients has overwhelmed the two-day-a-week clinic, which shares its waiting room and lab with the county’s Public Social Services Agency.

“We’re not able to see the volume we’d like to see because we’re not here enough,� clinic nurse Suzanne Duff said. “There’s definitely a need for the new clinic.�

Countywide, the number of people relying on state subsidies for health care has increased steadily for the past five years. And the white-collar, suburban cities of Moorpark, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks have not been spared.

The number of east county Medi-Cal recipients is up more than 40% compared to the same time last year, from 4,884 to 6,905, according to the social services agency.

“We have seen this increase coming for a while,� said Pierre Durand, administrator at Ventura County Medical Center, which oversees the county’s health clinics. “Now we’re finally getting a chance to do something about it.�

Carlos and Petra Alvarado of Thousand Oaks are looking forward to the expansion. The Alvarados brought their 4-month-old daughter Lyssa to the crowded but clean center for a checkup Tuesday morning.

“It will be great when it’s open full time,� said Carlos Alvarado, a store clerk who took time off from work for the visit. “Then I can come when I’m not working and it will be easier to get an appointment.�

The usual wait for an appointment at the clinic is about two weeks, the same as it is at other sites in the county, clinic manager Carrie Peterson said. But because of the clinic’s limited hours and a lack of physicians in the area who accept Medi-Cal patients, many people end up traveling to clinics in Ventura, Oxnard or Los Angeles for care, she said.

“Right now some people have to go out of their way to see a doctor,� said Dr. Jack Adelman, who has worked at the clinic since it opened in 1974. “From my perspective we could definitely tolerate the expansion.�

The new center will have eight to 12 examining rooms, Durand said. He estimated that the clinic will handle between 10,000 and 24,000 visits a year.

A patient load in that range would offset renovation and equipment costs and could make the clinic self-sufficient within a year, Durand said.

If the clinic is successful, Durand said the county hopes to close the only other east county clinic, located in Moorpark.

Over the past several years the county has opened other family-care clinics in Oxnard, Ventura and Santa Paula. “We have learned from those experiences,� Durand said. “We now know what it takes to make a clinic work well.�

Growing Public Health Needs The number of recipients of Medi-Cal, state health care assistance for the poor and elderly, has mushroomed in Moorpark, Newbury Park, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks in recent years. 1993: 6,905 1992: 4,884 1991: 3,506 1990: 2,284 1989: 1,922 1988: 591 Source: Ventura County Public Social Services Agency