Val Verde Clinic Reopens on a Grant, ‘a Wing and a Prayer’ : Health: The small community fought to regain low-cost medical care. On Saturday, it greeted it with open arms.

As medical clinics go, the Samuel Dixon Family Health Center is small. A former Sunday school building, it has three patient rooms, two offices and a reception area squeezed into less than 1,000 square feet.

But to the people of unincorporated Val Verde (population 2,000), the clinic has always taken on an importance greater than its size, as the place where many residents, especially the poor, sought basic medical care.

On Saturday, six months after the clinic was forced to close after its benefactor pulled its support, the clinic reopened.

Patients of all ages crowded into the waiting area seeking treatment for many ailments, including chicken pox and ear infections. Clinic personnel even treated one minor emergency when a mother rushed in with her daughter, who had a cut near her eye.

“We’re considering this day a tremendous success,” said Edwin Seth Brown, president of the Val Verde Civic Assn. and a member of the clinic’s newly formed board of directors. “Every ethnic group is represented here today. Every age group. It’s a representation of American culture.”

With a bank account large enough to last a year and a fresh coat of paint courtesy of local Kiwanis members, the center will provide medical care and programs three days a week.

“We are running on sort of a wing and a prayer,” said Allan Mutch, another board member and owner of Val Verde’s general store. “But we have our funding in place and we are all right now.”

The center, named after a former community leader and activist, had operated in the tiny community north of Magic Mountain for about 10 years. It served an estimated 2,000 patients annually, many of them low-income Val Verde residents without health insurance.

Early last year, however, the clinic ran into trouble when Santa Monica Hospital withdrew its $68,000 annual grant and physician services from the clinic, said Jessie Campbell, a Val Verde resident who was recently named the clinic’s director. The hospital opted to spend the money for medical programs closer to Santa Monica.

Clinic supporters focused attention on its plight. Last summer, the County Board of Supervisors voted to allocate $120,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant funds to keep it operating.

But since the clinic had previously operated under the auspices of Santa Monica Hospital, it did not have a license to operate on its own, Campbell said. Hence, the county withheld the block grant money and the clinic was closed in August.

To obtain the county license and grant money, Campbell said Val Verde residents had to establish a nonprofit corporation and elect a board of directors. The directors, in turn, relied heavily on the Clinicas del Camino Real, a nonprofit health organization based in Ventura County, for help with technical assistance and paperwork, she said.

Two weeks ago, county health officials issued the Val Verde clinic a license.

Besides the block grant money, the clinic has received $26,000 from the United Fund, Campbell said. Although all the money will be spent over the next year to operate the clinic, directors are hopeful the same financial sources, as well as new ones, can be tapped in future years.

In past years, the overwhelming majority of the clinic’s patients have been Latinos seeking basic medical care for their families, Campbell said. She hopes the clinic can expand its community outreach programs and stress preventive medicine techniques to people who otherwise might not be exposed to them.

“For many people, this is a godsend,” Brown said. “We take Medi-Cal patients. The only other place around here that does that is Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar. Many people don’t have transportation to go there.”

One resident who is happy about the clinic’s reopening is Celia Hill, mother of three young boys. She said that she does not have a driver’s license and had come to rely on the clinic’s staff to provide care for her youngsters.

“For me, it’s really necessary,’ Hill said.

Campbell said that by 3 p.m. Saturday, the clinic had served about 11 people with several still waiting.

“It really hasn’t let up,” she said. “We already have appointments scheduled for next week. A couple of people came in today just to meet the doctor.

“This is such a good day,” she said. “It’s been a lot of hard work. It’s kind of like a dream come true.”

Times staff writer Mayerene Barker contributed to this story.