AIDS Patients Find a ‘Robin Hood’ : Medical: A Burbank osteopath has an unusual specialty, treating HIV-positive people who either have no insurance or are getting limited governmental help.

With a storm howling and midnight approaching, Dr. Philip H. Lee reached for the phone. Time was running out, he feared, for a dying AIDS patient who wanted to receive Holy Communion.

Lee had seen the man hours earlier, but sitting at home he decided the request could not wait and called a nun who agreed to administer the sacrament. Bundled in raincoats, Lee and Sister Mary Shearer rushed to the bedside of a young singer suffering from lymphoma whose good looks had made him a favorite among the nurses.

In the hospital room, the nun granted his last wish.

“After that, he held my hand and said to me, ‘I’m not afraid anymore,’ ” Lee said. The following day, the young man died.

Recounting the story brings tears to the eyes of Lee, a 50-year-old Burbank osteopath with a sensitive and self-effacing manner. There will be more tears shed by Lee, who has developed an unusual specialty, treating dozens of HIV-positive patients who either have no insurance or are receiving help from governmental programs, such as Medicare and Medi-Cal.

Of his general practice caseload, Lee estimates that up to 200 patients are HIV-positive. Of those, about 20% have lost their insurance or can offer only partial payment through government programs. Medical experts say Lee, who has been on the staff of St. Joseph Medical Center since 1981, is in the minority among his peers.

“Rarely, do I hear of doctors like him,” said Jacques Chambers, benefits program manager for AIDS Project Los Angeles, whose office helps more than 800 clients with insurance-related problems each month. When acquired immune deficiency syndrome patients lose their insurance, many must change doctors or go to Los Angeles County facilities, he said. But Lee will take them, even patients on Medicare, which will not cover all expenses.

“If they walk into this office sick, my policy is they don’t have to leave,” Lee said. “I will take care of them.”

But economics can get in the way of charity, occasionally placing Lee in the frustrating position of having to refer patients to county facilities. He explained that some patients without insurance need long-term care and regular medicine, which he cannot provide.

But Lee finds ways to cut costs, his patients say, or he simply reaches into his pocket. “I practice Robin Hood medicine,” Lee said, explaining that he saves samples of medicine for his patients with little or no insurance coverage. “I try to minimize their suffering.”

Under his desk, he stashes pill boxes that have built-in timers. These samples also end up in the hands of his patients. The gadgets assure that the AIDS patients take their AZT medication on time.

Bradley Pierce had been going to Lee for seven years, covered by insurance offered at work. After changing jobs, he learned that his new employer did not offer health insurance and he was unable to get a private policy because he suffered from diabetes. Two months later, Pierce learned he was HIV-positive. Pierce visited Lee’s office at least once a week for an entire year and was never sent a bill.

“He did not refuse me,” Pierce said. Eventually, the 32-year-old Pierce, a Burbank resident, began receiving medical coverage through government assistance.

“When you’re going through all this, you have to hear somebody say, ‘I’ll help you. I’ll take over,’ ” said Hector Sanchez, 37, a Glassell Park resident who was treated by Lee for several months even though he had no insurance at the time. “That’s basically what he did.”

Lee began treating HIV-positive patients in 1983, four years after opening his medical practice. He says his work is not so remarkable.

“In spite of all the giving, I still make a good living, so there’s no complaint. Somehow or other, it works out,” he said. “We do it without any expectations. We do it out of human decency.”

Robert Wakely, who works as a nurse in Lee’s office, said the doctor is thorough in treating his patients and demands a hard-working staff. “He’s very strict,” said Wakely, a trained Army medic whose experience working for military physicians prepared him for the job. “Sometimes he’s hard to please.”

According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials, 1 million Americans are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Of the 242,000 documented AIDS cases in the United States since 1981, 160,000 of the patients have died.

AIDS medications and treatments are expensive. Moreover, some patients lose their health insurance benefits because they are no longer able to work. Additionally, the U.S. Supreme Court recently gave companies that fund their own health insurance the right to cut benefits for AIDS patients and those with other catastrophic diseases.

A total of 2.7 million L.A. County residents were without health insurance in 1990, representing 33% of those under age 65, according to county officials. Statewide, an average of 17% are uninsured, contrasted with 15% nationwide.

Figures on the number of Los Angeles-area doctors who care for the uninsured and those on government programs--without expecting full payment--are unavailable. Medical experts, however, believe the number is small.

But even when doctors try to help the uninsured and those receiving government aid, it can be difficult to find hospitals that will admit such patients and laboratories that will run necessary tests on them. “The system is not conducive to supporting doctors who want to give free care to patients without insurance or who are on Medi-Cal,” said Dr. Aliza Lifshitz, who treats many who are uninsured, undocumented or Medi-Cal and Medicare recipients.

Lee believes more physicians should be willing to take care of patients who can’t afford their services. “I appeal to my colleagues. If every doctor who treats HIV patients would take 10% of Medi-Cal and charity patients, there will be a lot less human suffering. It would share the burden,” Lee said. “I alone cannot take all of Medi-Cal patients because I don’t have a Rockefeller Foundation to pay the bills.”

He says his work is driven by his religious beliefs and what proved to be a life-changing experience when he was young.

Born in Indonesia, Lee had a close relationship with a compassionate father who was known to give rides to strangers walking down the road. After the younger Lee immigrated to the United States, an effort sponsored by the Methodist Church, he became acquainted with a classmate’s father, Cleveland Davis. The Texas attorney, who Lee calls his “American father,” welcomed Lee at his ranch during the summer and holidays. He even co-signed a $5,000 bank note to help pay for medical school.

Upon Lee’s graduation in 1972, Davis told him to tear up the note.

Lee continues to see similar, if not simpler, examples of generosity, such as the time one of his elderly patients contributed $50 to help buy food for AIDS patients.

“AIDS can sometimes show the best part of the human love,” Lee said. “You see the mother who accepts her son unconditionally. And the woman who shared her Social Security check.”