manual
山
Making the case for a cause
By Katherine Mulder
kmulder@kansan.com
Life inside a health care access clinic with a woman who sees it all
Lixel Barnhill did not cry as she listed all of the loved ones who required her care. Two of her three children have cerebral palsy: 18-year-old Daniel and 10-year-old Duke. Her daughter, an 8-year-old named Destiny, is healthy despite her 13-hour birth was Barnhill's hardest and longest. Then there were her parents. Her mother had Parkinson's disease and
Photo by Tyler Waugh
9 to 5: Likel Barnhill, clinical nurse and medication coordinator at the Health Care Access Clinic, works around the clock, sometimes 12-hour days, to help Douglas County residents who can't afford health care.
diabetes.Her father had Alzheimer's disease.She took this as a sign she belonged in health care, so she went to school to make it official.
windows but with walls lined with shelves full of medicine. This is where Barnhill starts and ends her day.
It is a Thursday. Barnhill agreed to let me shadow her. I went everywhere she went. This is her story.
Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Barnhill works with other workers and volunteers at the Health Care Access Clinic in Lawrence to help provide health care for those in the Douglas County who can't afford it. These people face the hard realities of the bad economy, and their numbers are growing faster than the resources that assist them. For this reason Barnhill recently volunteered to work two jobs at the center, as a clinical nurse and as the medication coordinator. She also gave up her office so it could be used as another exam room. Her desk now sits in the middle of the medicine supply closet—room as small as it sounds, without
8:30 a.m. Barnhill finds her purse in the bottom drawer of her desk. It reminds her that she worked 12 hours yesterday. It would have been more if she hadn't accidentally locked herself out of the clinic last night. On Mondays and Tuesdays, Barnhill works mainly as a clinical nurse. Consequently her work as the medication coordinator piles up. After having dinner with her family, she returned to work.Taking a box full of paperwork to her car, Barnhill accidentally forgot her purse inside. "Yesterday was a long day," she says."One of those days I just went home and cried to my husband."
9 a.m. Barnhill is calling patients to tell them their prescriptions are ready when she is paged. A patient is here to pick up his medicine; this happens about 30 times a day. She finds a brown paper lunch bag and goes to the waiting room. A man in his 50s takes the bag and whispers he doesn't have the $2 fee. She says no problem, it happens a lot. On the way back she is handed six more medical charts.
★★★
Jeri Safarik, nurse practitioner at the clinic, says Barnhill is managing a prescription program with more than 700 enrolled people. "It is a huge task," the nurse practitioner says. "We keep her busy."
** **
9:30 am After filling the prescriptions of five more patients, Barnhill's husband calls. The school says their 10-year-old son is sick. Barnhill hangs up to call the school.As she dials she says, "Anytime he even sheds a tear the school is all over it, which is great but they call a lot." The school asks her to come get him. Barnhill firmly explains that she works two jobs and her husband is in Kansas City but will come soon.
***
Barnhill inspires her coworkers with her devotion to her job and family. Safarik says Barnhill takes on so much both personally and professionally outside of the clinic. Barnhill's sister and her sister's children also live with her family, and Barnhill is a Girl Scout troop leader. Barnhill also taught a night nursing class until she took on the second job at the clinic and
had to stop. "She finally gave up something." Safarik says.
***
Without hanging up the phone, Barnhill dials the next patient. This time she speaks Spanish.The patient says she doesn't have the gas money to drive to the clinic.Barnhill says she will call the prescriptions in to a nearby store so she can walk to get them.The patient then says her diabetic mother needs an eye exam.Barnhill says she'll schedule it.Mewhile nurses and workers walk in and out to pick up charts and medications.
story continued on page 6
Big ways for students to help without cash
1. List the Health Care Access Center as one of your causes on Facebook.
2. Use GoodSearch as your search engine to help raise money. Go to www.goodsearch.com and type Health Care Access in the "Who do you GoodSearch for?" box.Links are provided to add GoodSearch to your search bar. Every search gives one cent to the clinic.
3. Ask local doctors and/or businesses if they help support Heath Care Access Clinic, If not, encourage them to start.
4. Support doctors and/or businesses that do support the clinic.
5. Salley Zorgyr, development director and volunteer coordinator, says she needs 200 volunteers for the Kansas Marathon on April 19. All proceeds from the run go to the clinic. For more information, e-mail her at zogyrs@healthcareaccess.org.
The Health Care Access Clinic 1920 Moodie Road Lawrence, Kansas 66046 785.841.5760
February 26, 2009
2002.01.19 16:38:54
5