Mary E. Stong doesn't have a building, medical equipment, volunteer doctors or nurses or money, but she is determined to establish Carroll County's first free health care clinic.
"The seed's been planted. This is going to be done," said Stong, principal at Elmer Wolfe Elementary School in Union Bridge. "We just have to find the hearts that are prepared."
Stong said she has only to look at her students to see proof of the need for a health care clinic in northwestern Carroll, where the median income falls below other areas of the county.
She has tapped the school system's "last resort" fund to cover doctor visits and prescriptions for children whose parents have no health care resources. The fund was established last year with a $50,000 donation to the system.
"We're finding parents who don't qualify for Medicaid because they make $4 over the limit and they have six kids," said Margaret Hoffmaster, coordinator of health services.
Hoffmaster works with local physicians, dentists and pharmacists who accept Board of Education vouchers. Some give discounts for the care, she said.
Stong said the clinic would serve residents of northwestern Carroll County who have no health insurance.
Census information on who has or doesn't have health insurance is unavailable by ZIP code.
The 1990 census found that median household incomes in Union Bridge ($37,188); Linwood ($34,375); and New Windsor ($40,746), were below the countywide median household income $42,378.
Forty million Americans had no health insurance during 1994, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report published last year, the most recent count available. The report said adults between ages 18 and 24 were the most likely to be without health insurance. One in four had no coverage, and one in five part-time workers had no insurance.
Because of Medicare, virtually all the nation's elderly have health insurance.
The only free health care available to Carroll residents is provided by Mission of Mercy, a nonprofit mobile medical clinic that makes weekly stops in Westminster and twice-monthly visits to Taneytown, Brunswick, Thurmont, Reisterstown and Gettysburg, Pa.
"We are very supportive of Mission of Mercy and anyone who would like to start a sick-care clinic for people who can't afford [health care]," said Larry L. Leitch, acting deputy health officer in the Carroll County Health Department.
