The Nucleus Clinic in Coon Rapids is still standing, at the center of the health care and economic crises.
New patients, recently unemployed or uninsured, visit the reproductive health clinic all the time, although these days the nonprofit operation is scrambling to make up for lost resources, said executive director Becky Fink.
Since losing a $50,000 grant in last year's state budget cuts, the clinic is adjusting to a $175,000 annual budget, to cover part-time salaries for Fink and two nurse practitioners, medical supplies, lab contracts, rent, insurance, medicine, contraceptives and more.
Still, the reduced-cost clinic treated more than 800 patients in 2009, filling birth-control prescriptions, examining Pap smears, administering tests for pregnancy and disease and counseling women and men about reproductive options. The clinic does not perform abortions.
Once, the clinic was a place for patients who didn't want parents or insurers involved in emergency contraception or STD testing, Fink said.
Today, the economy has broadened Nucleus' role as a resource for preventive care. Many also come asking for referrals for other types of health and social services.
"I think about all the young people out there doing hair, doing nails, serving us at restaurants, cleaning hotel rooms, providing care for people with disabilities," Fink said. Even health workers often do not have ready access to care, she said. "These are people who may have insurance available through their organizations, but the premiums and the copays are not within reach. So they are piecing together their health care."
For the past two years, Tina Cielinski, 21, has been visiting the clinic to get Depo-Provera, a contraceptive shot she needs to treat premenstrual dysphoric disorder. When the group-home worker from Brooklyn Park had to leave her parents' health care, her mom, who had used the 38-year-old clinic back in the 1970s, steered her toward Nucleus.
"You can tell they care about what they're doing and they're doing it because they believe there should be affordable and good-quality services for people who don't have health insurance," Cielinski said.
If there were no Nucleus Clinic? "I would be going without the care that I need, and I'm sure many other people would, too," she said.
The clinic runs thanks to a corps of volunteers who together put in as many as 40 hours a week, though the clinic is only open to patients 16 hours a week.
"This has got to run through your veins," said Fink, a volunteer board member since the clinic spun off from the city and became a private nonprofit in 2007.
"Access to reproductive health care is at the core of economic stability and improved pregnancy outcomes," she said. "If we can help delay pregnancy until a time when people are in a position to manage both a pregnancy and parenthood, it's at the core of stability."
The larger community has contributed in other ways. Landlord Rick Lund has shown generosity and patience when the clinic has struggled to make rent. Allina and Health East provide lab work at little or no cost. An IT class from Augsburg College is helping design a better data system.
Still, the transition to nonprofit status has been a struggle, Fink said, between delays in getting 501(c) status and rumors of the clinic's demise. And then, last year, the clinic lost its state grant. Another $50,000 county grant remained, however, and so did a $20,000 federal block grant. The board regrouped to make up the difference using a different state program with a fee-for-service system.
Thanks to private donations -- many from patients -- the clinic recently retired a $30,000 operating debt, in time to start paying off a $40,000 city loan from the clinic's early days of independence. "They're probably surprised we're still here," Fink said, laughing. "We're going to make good on our commitment with them."
Mayor Tim Howe said he's glad the clinic has persevered. "It's a pretty amazing story, the passion that the people involved with it have put into it and kept things running."
Maria Elena Baca • 612-673-4409
