Neighborhood Clinic Getting a Shot in Arm

Keeping the Hollywood Sunset Free Clinic alive is a neighborhood thing in Silver Lake.

Brenda Rubalcaba found her way here when she was 16 and needed birth-control counseling.

“If I didn’t know this clinic existed, I would be the mother of a 6-year-old now. A lot of kids get birth control here,” Rubalcaba said, as she prepared the vaccinations for a smiling 6-month-old, Brian Guerrero.

Rubalcaba came back to work for a summer youth program and never left. Now she’s a UCLA-trained medical assistant.

Dr. Stephen Lee lived two blocks away when he came in to volunteer for a few days. Now he’s the supervising physician and something of a local celebrity. His 2-year-old daughter Sofie is a VIP, too; he brings her to work with him on Tuesdays.

“The clinic welcomed me, so I stayed. I think I signed a 100-year contract,” joked Lee, 31, as he took blood from Brian, who was now howling in protest.

So when the time came to find funding to keep the clinic going, no one had to look too far.

High on the crest of Silver Lake’s Micheltorena Street at the Paramour--the former old Hollywood estate of silent screen sensation Antonio Moreno--the solution was obvious to Dana Hollister: a rock benefit. She’d hosted one before at the Paramour, last year, raising $488,000 after government funding cuts ate into the clinic’s budget.

Hollister picked up the phone and began dialing into L.A.’s own “Six Degrees of Separation.”

The Mexican rock-en-espanol band Los Jaguares “were the first ones to jump on the bandwagon,” recalled Hollister, a rugged urban hipster dressed in black who bought the property in 1998 and rents it out for such events as film premiere parties.

Others followed Los Jaguares. Soon there were enough volunteers for three nights of music.

Robert Downey Jr. agreed to host a concert Thursday in the courtyard of the Paramour. Downey got his friend Elton John to agree to perform before hopping on the red-eye to London. Another Downey friend, Sting, agreed to share the stage.

Hollister’s buddy Anthony Kiedis committed his band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, to perform at the Paramour with Los Jaguares on Friday. Downey recruited Benicio del Toro and actress Lucy Liu to co-host at the Hollywood Palladium on Saturday, when the group Third Eye Blind will play.

“Everyone was just a handshake away from everyone else,” Hollister said.

Balladeer Daniel Lanois also signed on, and singer-songwriter Aimee Mann agreed to perform for the clinic for the second year in a row.

“The level [at which] people are participating is awesome,” Hollister said. “I’m awe-struck.”

The ticket prices--from $75 to a hefty $1,000--could do a lot for the clinic’s bottom line.

Tickets for all three nights are being sold by Ticketmaster. Information about the events is available at (323) 665-5384 and a Web site, https://www.silverliningsilverlake.com.

Hollister said they’re trying to keep the costs--including security, lighting and generators--as low as possible.

“There’s a lot of money spent on the trappings, things like flower arrangements. There’s a lot of funny stuff that goes on at benefits, and we’re not doing it. We’re really stripped down,” Hollister said, in an interview in an empty examining room at the clinic.

In the examining room next door, Rubalcaba looked baby Brian over carefully. Brian was born prematurely and was initially unable to breathe on his own. Today his blood test came back a little anemic.

Rubalcaba is proud of the diagnostic skills she has acquired here. Sometimes babies come in who can’t hear. One little boy couldn’t walk or talk.

“He was autistic,” Rubalcaba said. “I could tell by the way he was laughing. And when he got his hemoglobin, he didn’t cry at all.”

That boy, like many of the patients diagnosed with serious ailments, was referred to a specialist. Since the clinic opened in 1968, it has given many of the neighborhood babies their first vaccinations. Seventy-three percent of its patients live under the poverty level and would have little other access to such necessities as mammogram screening, pediatric care and psychiatric services.

The clinic provided 87,475 free visits this year. Elderly patients come to be examined for diabetes or heart trouble. Local homeless people are treated by the clinic’s mobile medical van.

In a county where as many as 30% of residents lack health insurance, according to statistics quoted by the clinic, free clinics like this one fill a big gap. The staff is familiar with the people they’re treating: Robert Suazo, the director of the homeless program, was homeless himself for four years. And many staffers, like Rubalcaba, grew up in the neighborhood. Even her husband and son get their checkups here.

“Patients are very appreciative,” Rubalcaba said. “They say, ‘Thank you, Brendita.’ They hug me. One man asked me to pray for him. When he got well, he got a church to pray for me. That was the sweetest thing ever.”