NORMAL -- The Community Health Care Clinic is the latest human service agency to be slammed by the state budget crisis, even though the clinic receives no state money.

McLean County's free clinic for the uninsured is treating an increasing number of patients, including residents who formerly received services at agencies whose budgets have been slashed by the state.

"Those budget cuts have entered my world," said Shirley Drazewski, executive director of the clinic, 902 N. Franklin Ave., Normal. The clinic is surviving the influx of new patients but not without additional work by the staff, increased use of volunteers (ranging from college students to doctors) and searches for other, nongovernmental sources of money.

"A lot of people don't have health insurance, so the clinic is getting really full," Linnette Moore, 51, of Bloomington, a clinic patient for three years, said at the clinic this week. "It doesn't surprise me. This is a very good clinic."

Moore works full time but doesn't have health insurance through her employer, so she comes to the clinic for her blood pressure medicine and checkups.

Even before this summer's state budget cuts to human service agencies, the number of clinic patients had been rising because of the recession. As more people lost their jobs or saw their hours cut, they lost health insurance, making them eligible to apply to become clinic patients, said Drazewski and clinic coordinator Mike Romagnoli.

"We're seeing more first-time patients who never sought help before," Romagnoli said.

Adding to the pressure has been cuts to social service agencies, Drazewski said. For example, the Center for Human Services - McLean County's mental health agency - has had to cut treatment and services for its non-Medicaid clients, so some of those clients have come to the clinic.

"We don't have counseling but we have primary care doctors who can prescribe medicine," Drazewski said. "But some (patients) are out of our scope of services so I need to figure out where to refer them."

In addition, some Occupational Development Center clients with developmental disabilities are coming to the clinic. They formerly qualified for medicine through John M. Scott Health Resources Center, but they no longer qualify because the end of ODC employment services means they don't have a household income.

Thirdly, cuts in services to the developmentally disabled mean they are more stressed, which is hurting their physical and mental health, Drazewski said.

The clinic has received 71 additional applications solely from people with mental health needs and 38 of them already are being served by clinic staff, she said.

Overall, since Jan. 1, the clinic staff has handed out 1,193 applications for new patients, 466 applications have been returned and 280 are being served as new patients, Drazewski said. The clinic has about 3,000 patients overall.

The clinic has two full-time and six part-time employees and relies on volunteers, including physicians. Sources of revenue include United Way of McLean County, private grants and donations.

"We're not dependent on government," she said. "We are dependent on our staff, our volunteers, our physicians and our donors."

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Clinic numbers up

Community Health Care Clinic is busier because of the recession and cuts at other social service agencies. Examples of some increases, which are based on comparisons of January through July 2008 with January through July 2009, follow:

Service	2008	2009	% increase
Total patient exams	2,717	3,160	16%
Physician exams	181	399	120%
New patient exams	221	280	27%
Drug assistance programs started	1,432	1,893	32%
Patient visits	6,301	7,360	17%
New patient applications	311	466	50%
Referrals to physician-specialists	388	571	47%

SOURCE: Shirley Drazewski, Community Health Care Clinic