ORANGE : Lestonnac Clinic a Health Safety Net

Lorna can’t afford to pay for medical care right now. A lower back injury in a recent car accident forced her to temporarily leave her job as a food processor.

And now two fingers on the 32-year-old woman’s right hand are infected. The pain is constant.

So she sits in a waiting room--filled mostly with mothers and their children--at the Lestonnac Free Medical and Dental Clinic hoping a doctor will see her.

“I’m basically a healthy woman,” said Lorna, who shares a house with her parents and grandparents in Orange. “I’m just really in a bind right now.”

But as difficult as Lorna’s situation is, she is better off than most of the clinic’s other patients. Named after Saint Jeanne De Lestonnac, the clinic was established to provide no-cost health care for Orange County residents who “fall through the cracks,” said Sister Marie Therese, who founded the clinic in 1979.

The clinic treats an estimated 6,000 homeless, destitute and impoverished men, women and children each year.

“We treat the poorest of the poor,” said Therese, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, who worked in England, Africa and Brazil before coming to Orange about 30 years ago.

In addition to general pediatric and dental care, the clinic also offers vaccinations, diabetes screening, mammograms, and educational programs on nutrition and the virus that causes AIDS. Though sustaining funding has been difficult, the clinic also runs a pharmacy, which distributes prescriptions to some patients.

The staff’s doctors and nurses work on a strictly volunteer basis. The clinic itself operates solely on grants and donations.

“They give me medication,” said Elsa Roman, 53, who recently sought treatment for high blood pressure and arthritis at the clinic. “They also give me a lot of love and understanding. Sometimes I think I would dead if it weren’t for this place.”

It’s comments like that keep the clinic running, Therese said.

“It gives you great satisfaction that you are relieving the suffering of others,” Therese said. “Otherwise, where would they go? They sometimes think nobody cares about them, so we try to love them, try to build them up spiritually.”