OJAI : Health Clinic Aids Low-Income People

Patients at the Ojai Valley Community Health Center wouldn’t know from the magazines that the clinic just opened its doors this week.

As in many doctors’ offices, the waiting room periodicals are several months old.

“We did that on purpose,” said Dr. James Gay, laughing. “It puts patients at ease.” Gay, a family practitioner, spends one day a week at the new clinic.

A joint venture of the Ojai Valley Community Hospital and Clinicas del Camino Real, based in Oxnard, the clinic specializes in providing care to Medi-Cal and low-income patients, Gay said. Because of the large Latino community, the clinic’s staff is bilingual, he said.

The clinic’s services range from AIDS testing and prenatal care to treatment of minor cuts and illnesses, Gay said. Doctors’ fees are paid on a sliding scale, depending on the patient’s ability to pay.

Nestled in a converted cottage near downtown Ojai--the former dining room serves as a waiting area and the bedrooms are examination rooms--the clinic opened its doors Monday and has already treated more than a dozen patients.

“The idea is to reach some of the people up there that otherwise have to go all the way to Ventura for care,” Gay said. Before the clinic opened, there were no doctors’ offices in the Ojai Valley that accepted Medi-Cal, he added.

“It’s closer than Ventura and it takes Medi-Cal,” said Casitas Springs resident Tiffany Scott, 12, who was visiting the clinic for treatment of a perforated eardrum. “Usually we would have to go to the expensive doctors,” added Judy Wheeler, 36, a family friend who took Tiffany in for the treatment.

The idea for the clinic came up when Ojai Valley Community Hospital considered changing its insurance policies, which previously did not allow Medi-Cal patients, said Jim Bennett, associate executive director of the Ojai hospital, which now accepts Medi-Cal. Hospital staff familiar with Clinicas del Camino Real, which runs three similar clinics in Oxnard, Saticoy and Fillmore, offered to help start a clinic in Ojai.

“It’s working,” Bennett said. “We’re helping them with loans of equipment and taking their patients in our emergency room. And any of their patients that might need hospitalization won’t have to go to Ventura.” The clinic, located at 311 W. Ojai Ave., is open every weekday except Wednesday.