Hope and Healthcare for Those in Need

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Spring/Summer 2022

Utah

Hope and Healthcare for Those in Need

What started out as a pinky swear at a Starbucks has now turned into a place that provides hope to those who would have nowhere else to go. The Hope Clinic provides free healthcare and medical treatment to anyone who can’t afford to pay.

BY HALEN HUBBARD

When they were in medical school, Jane Powers and Monsoor Emam started working at an emergency room. After a while, they started to find themselves helping and treating people in the parking lot because some people—for example, those who were undocumented or financially insecure—were too afraid to come in. After working with this particular group of patients, Powers and Emam knew that they had to do something to help. In 2005, they worked with the Sonami Foundation to start a clinic.

After Emam took a brief hiatus due to a family matter, he returned to Utah, where he met with Powers again to continue their project. However,

to achieve that objective, they swore to keep it simple. They wanted to keep the clinic small, staffed with 100 percent volunteers. By 2009, they began to work toward their goal, and in 2010, The Hope Clinic officially became a 501(c)(3).

After keeping it simple for 12 years now, Powers proudly says with a smile, “It works!”

all HanDS on DeCK

David George is just one of approximately 200 volunteers that work at the clinic. He’s also on the board of directors for the clinic and helps with the accounting and paperwork. But most importantly, he is Powers’s right-hand man.

“Anything that Jane doesn’t know how to do or wants done, she’ll tell me to go take care of it,” he says with a laugh.

George claims that Powers does all the “real work” around the clinic, but Powers might claim otherwise. The value of each one of the volunteers is almost palpable as soon as you walk into the clinic. Every single person is treated with the same amount of importance because things really couldn’t be done without all hands ondeck.

“It doesn’t matter your denomination, race, or anything. Everybody just comes here to help,” George says. “If somebody needs something, we are here to help.”

Medical students make up a big part of the volunteers. The University of Utah and Brigham Young University send students to volunteer at The Hope Clinic to gain experience. After their degree is finished, many of them return. “Can you imagine?” Powers asks. “You’re in school, you have a heavy schedule, and you drive in horrible traffic to get here in the morning. You’d better bet I’m going to give you a big hug and a treat!” Matt Pierce has been a volunteer since 2013. While he was studying medicine at the University of Utah, one of his roommates suggested that he volunteer at the clinic. “I was just barely getting into medicine and the health world. He said, ‘You should really go to this clinic. This isa good place to learn, and it’s a good place to serve people in the community, especially immigrants and refugees.’ I felt like that’s what I should do,” he shares. Pierce moved from filing charts in the back office and interpreting Spanish to doing triage and taking vital signs after he got his medical technician license. “Then I went back to school to become a physician assistant, and as soon as I graduated, I came right back here,” hesays.

a pieCe oF tHe pie

The Hope Clinic can’t do everything themselves, but with the help of other institutions in the valley, they are able to provide as much care to their patients as possible. Intermountain Healthcare

They started to find themselves helping and treating people in the parking lot because some people—for example, those who were undocumented or financially insecure— were too afraid to comein.

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Utah contributes a lot to the clinic; they’ll donate supplies and medicine, along with additional services such as MRI scans and other treatments. Even the Astro Burger next to the clinic will hold on to some of the shipments that are sent to the clinic when it isn’t open.

The doctors who volunteer at the clinic are invaluable. “Some of the best doctors in the state come and volunteer,” says Pierce. “These are people who I would be put on a year-long waiting list to see. Orthopedics, dermatologists, gynecologists, and even dentists are just some of the many different types of practitioners who will give some of their time to helphere.”

Olive Pharmacy is the clinic’s main supplier of prescriptions, providing medication to patients that they would otherwise not be able to afford. Even over-the-counter medicines that cost just a few dollars are a huge help. And because of the partnerships they have with all of their fellow medical providers, The Hope Clinic is able to refer their patients to other places to receive free healthcare from them.

a meDiCal melting pot

Starting with the founders, The Hope Clinic has always been home to diversity among the patients and volunteers. The three directors of the clinic include a Muslim, a Latter-day Saint, and a Catholic. When the clinic was first opened, RussellM. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Monsoor’s local imam both gave dedicatory prayers for the well-being and blessings the clinic would bring. The clinic’s patients and volunteers are also racially and culturally diverse.

“The beauty of Salt Lake is that we have all kinds of languages here,” Pierce says. “We have interpreters who come and speak Spanish or Chinese or Tongan or whatever.” He goes on to say that the clinic has seen such a wide range of patients that

almost every single language has been spoken in the clinic at some time. Nawris Alhassan is a volunteer who helps with getting patients’ prescriptions refilled, along with following through to make sure that patients are regularly checked up on. “The beauty of Salt “I was a refugee myself, and Lake is that we have I came to the United States when I was a little girl,” she all kinds of languages explains. “I saw the barriers here. We have interpreters who come with healthcare growing up. My mother didn’t speak English, and my father was and speak Spanish or working two jobs just to stay Chinese or Tongan or afloat. As a child, I remember getting frequent ear infections, whatever.” and my mom didn’t really understand why. So, oftentimes, my mom would do a home remedy to try to heal it, but she was really just making it worse. She didn’t know that she could take me to clinics like this.” Alhassan has made it her mission to reach out to disadvantaged minority groups in Utah and to educate them about healthcare. She wants to pave the way for other little Muslim girls so they can see that there is representation of them in the medicalfield. “Many girls in my culture aren’t really allowed to finish school,” Alhassan explains. “I had to beg my father for me to finish homeschool. When little girls can see women like me, women of color, they can hopefully see that they can do it, too.”

a plaCe oF miraCleS

Powers says that miracles happen almost everyday at the clinic. Just recently, a woman from El Salvador came to visit her family in Utah, and she had some pretty severe medical problems. She went into the clinic, and they found that she had a colostomy at some point in her life. She didn’t have the necessary bags and equipment to properly treat it, and sadly, the clinic didn’t have them either. Colostomy bags are very expensive, and she and her family are very poor, so many times, she would just use a towel instead of the proper bag. The day after

the woman came into the clinic, one of the volunteers, Miko, found the exact equipment needed to treat the colostomy.

“I don’t know who dropped them off, or where they came from!” Powers exclaims. “And these are usually something that Miko would never use or stock. Things like this seem to fall from the sky whenever we need them.”

Pierce remembers working with a man from Venezuela. As a lawyer, he just couldn’t make it in the country because of the turmoil Venezuela is going through. Over the course of a year, he made his way to cross the border into Texas where he was detained. After that, he was released and came to Utah where he had a friend. He had some health concerns, alongside serious trauma induced by hisjourney.

“I remember seeing him for the first time. He came here, and he was really nervous because he just didn’t know how much he could say about his story,” Pierce recalls. “We started working on him and taking care of the things that he needed, and after a couple of visits, I could see the relief in his face. It was really important to me to see him come here and feel heard and seen and taken care of.”

The Hope Clinic is open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and is located at 65 East 6850 South, Midvale, Utah. To volunteer or donate, visit utahhopeclinic.org or follow their Facebook page, @HopeClinicUT.

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Utah