Alice Heidy, 47; Advocate of Universal Health Care, Free Clinics in L.A.

Alice Heidy, 47, a health care advocate and administrator who, as director of Clinica Para Las Americas, helped prevent the Los Angeles free clinic from closing in the mid-1990s and expanded its services, died June 16 of undisclosed causes.

The Idaho-born Heidy grew up in Royal City, Wash. She received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Eastern Washington University and her master’s in public health from UCLA.

She lived in Managua, Nicaragua, in the 1980s. She helped deliver health care there and became committed to fighting for universal health care and complete access to the medical system for the poor, immigrants and refugees.

Beginning in 1988, she served for four years as executive director of Clinica Monsignor Oscar Romero, a free clinic serving the Central American community in Los Angeles. She later worked with the Los Angeles County AIDS Projects, organizing staff and community members to protest cuts in the county health care system.