CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — An agency that provides medical service to those in need is seeking funding after budget cuts from the state government.
James Harris, executive director of Health Access appeared before the Harrison County Commission Thursday to discuss financing the organization’s free clinic in Clarksburg.
“We did ask for an increase from the county commission this year, from 30,000 dollars up to the amount of 50,000 dollars,” Harris said. “The commission, once again, is very supportive of our mission and they did approve [Thursday] for us to receive an increase in the amount of funding.”
Health Access is also seeking an increase for the other entities they normally receive support from. For example, they have requested the United Way provide $75,000 this year toward operations.
The major source of budget cuts leading to these funding requests come from the state legislature and the governor.
“Our cut from the state was about 30 percent, which is pretty substantial,” Harris said. “So, we’re asking for some increased support locally.”
Keeping the service functioning is imperative to those who utilize it. According to Harris, patients describe it as a matter of life and death.
“Often, we have folks who are chronically ill people who have diabetes and hypertension and all kinds of chronic conditions that need to be managed,” he said. “We are the family doctor for those patients.”
Last year, the facility filled approximately 14,000 prescriptions and currently has 1,400 active patients –about half the number it did before the Affordable Care Act took effect.
Harris anticipates that number to increase with new demographic of patient for the facility.
“We started seeing Medicaid cases,” he said. “So folks who have a medical card who are having difficulty finding a provider in their local community –there aren’t very many primary care physicians really in West Virginia as a whole– those folks who are struggling to find care can come to our clinic if they had a medical card and they’ll be able to be seen.”
More information on the Health Access clinic can be found at healthaccessinc.org.