EAST LOS ANGELES : East L.A. College Students Try Clinic

East Los Angeles College students are using the new medical clinic on campus that opened at the beginning of the semester.

Student Health Center program manager Don Sease said that since Jan. 19, at least 150 patients have walked into the clinic, the likes of which East L.A. students have not seen in 10 years.

“The campus has 15,000 students and many of them do not have health insurance, which means that they’re not seeing a doctor and they will delay seeing a doctor until they’re really ill,” Sease said.

The clinic is staffed with one doctor and one nurse from White Memorial Medical Center, which signed a three-year agreement with the college to provide medical services.

The college’s last clinic was closed in the early 1980s when funding dried up, said Dennis Lee, vice president for business affairs for the Los Angeles Community College District. The college has set aside about $120,000 to start and help run the clinic, he said.

Students pay $7.50 at the beginning of each semester for unlimited visits to the clinic, which is in the administration building of the college, 1301 Brooklyn Ave.

Prescription medicines and laboratory fees are extra, but Sease said hospital officials are working on arrangements with labs and pharmaceutical companies to have those costs reduced.

The center is open from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

Because White Memorial is a teaching hospital, its medical students will visit the college to conduct forums on health and social issues such as AIDS, smoking and substance abuse, nutrition, and birth control. Students can have their cholesterol and blood pressure checked and be tested for HIV.

Eventually, the clinic will schedule specialists, such as gynecologists and psychologists, to see patients on certain days of the week, Lee said.