Clinic Is Must-See for New Mayor

I know the mayor-to-be has been hustling all over town and wearing himself out since election night, but I’m going to suggest one more stop on Antonio Villaraigosa’s victory lap.

You listening, Antonio?

Go down to 89th and Broadway in South-Central Los Angeles and have a tour of the Dorothy Mae Medical Clinic. I visited last week after hearing that the clinic could use a little help at City Hall, and I’m pretty sure you’ll like what you see.

Here’s the back story:

About 10 years ago at Loma Linda University Medical Center, a white nurse who came from a hard-luck family in Nevada met up with a black doctor who had a similar upbringing in South Carolina. They clicked immediately, became friends and stayed in touch after moving on to other jobs.

In 1998, Dr. Michael Singleton and nurse practitioner Terri Hannah were both successful. She was working for an obstetrician in the San Fernando Valley at the time. He was in residency at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. But neither felt they were making the kind of difference they had always wanted to. Casting sensible judgment aside, they got the bright idea to open a clinic where the risks and challenges would be endless, and where few doctors had dared to tread.

That’s when they heard that a doctor in a falling-down building on South Broadway had hung a for-sale sign out front.

“I’m not sure you want to come down here,” the retiring doctor told Hannah, wondering if the barely 5-foot-tall woman knew the neighborhood could be a little dicey.

But Hannah wasn’t scared off, even though she would have to run the place without Singleton on most days. He had become a Navy doctor and was based at Camp Pendleton, and his discharge had taken much longer than he anticipated, thanks in part to a recent tour of duty in Iraq.

Singleton has only been able to make it to the clinic one day a week or so on average, although he’s usually available by phone if Hannah has a medical issue she can’t handle. She also has arrangements with several other physicians when Singleton is tied up.

But Hannah -- who as a nurse practitioner is able to do much of what a doctor can, including write prescriptions -- is the one who has made the clinic work. The boxy, flat-top building now serves 2,500 patients -- triple the clientele it had under the former operation.

“She saved my life,” says patient Lorene Humphries, who had a serious diabetic condition that had gone undiagnosed until Hannah opened the clinic.

“She’s one of a kind, the way she takes the time to explain things to you,” says another patient, Mary Action. “Like I say, we don’t have too many places to go to in the neighborhood, and when you see her, it’s almost like visiting a family member.”

It’s the working poor who come through the door, often with chronic illnesses they’ve ignored because it was a choice between medicine or food for the family. They’ve got diabetes, anemia, asthma, high blood pressure and heart disease.

“He needs to see a cardiologist,” Hannah was telling a nursing student intern who hurried into Hannah’s office the other day with a fresh EKG readout for an elderly patient.

“He’s got a right bundle branch block,” Hannah said after a quick glance.

Whatever that means, it wasn’t good. Hannah said, by the way, that the EKG machine was a gift from a former student -- one of the many kind gestures that have helped the clinic survive seven tough years.

In her spare time, Hannah is moving to adopt a black foster child who’s now 2 1/2 . She’s also adopting an Asian American girl, now 3 1/2 , who first came to her as a patient at 6 months. At the time, the girl was living on the streets with her birth mother, who is now in prison. Hannah, who raised three children on her own after her husband split in her last year of nursing school, is teaching the toddlers Hebrew.

When she isn’t up to her neck in patients and toddlers, Hannah mops the floors at the clinic to save on janitorial costs. Singleton pitches in, too. Once, while painting the hallway, he overheard some patients in the waiting room talking about medical problems. Singleton offered some advice, but the patients said they’d rather wait and get the opinion of a doctor.

“I am the doctor,” said Singleton, who named the clinic for the mother who raised him to mind his manners and treat everyone with respect.

To ward off a maddening graffiti problem, Singleton and Hannah hung banners outside bearing a crucifix and a Star of David, theorizing that the threat of a hate crime rap would deter taggers.

But it’ll take more than a couple of banners to clean up the neighborhood. The clinic is at the epicenter of a weekly low-riding scene that draws thousands, not all of whom are on their best behavior.

And crime is never far off. A year and a half ago, Hannah was conducting an exam when she heard a bang.

“That sounds like a gunshot,” she said.

She went racing out of the clinic and found a robbery victim on the ground, bleeding from a wound to his groin. Hannah stopped the bleeding while waiting for paramedics.

What was she thinking, Dr. Singleton demanded to know. You’re supposed to run away from gunfire, not toward it.

“I told him I thought they were done shooting,” says Hannah.

The doctor wasn’t surprised.

“She’s a very hard charger and says that if you believe in something, you’ll find ways to make it work. And she’s done it. I’m not surprised by her; I’m inspired. She inspires me often. We’ll have another problem and I’ll say, ‘I don’t know, Terri.’ And she says, ‘Michael, we can make it work.’ ”

It’s a lot of optimism, given a healthcare system that reimburses her $12 a month for the Medi-Cal patients who constitute 80% of the clientele.

But far from throwing in the towel, Singleton and Hannah have been trying for 1 1/2 years to double the size of the clinic. Their goal is to provide the nutrition and lifestyle counseling that might keep neighbors from getting sick in the first place.

Easier said than done.

“It’s been one hurdle after another,” says Hannah. “And I’m only asking for a hand, not a handout.”

Paul Zwerdling, an accountant and attorney whose father used to be a schoolteacher in South-Central, has been trying to help them with the banks and bureaucrats, particularly with some of the knuckleheads at City Hall.

Construction cost estimates have risen while they await city approval. Zwerdling became convinced Hannah and Singleton needed to make a few hefty campaign donations in order to get things moving.

But even if they were so inclined, they’re tapped out after sinking every penny into the clinic and maxing out credit cards.

“The city says 50% of the wall space has to be windows,” Zwerdling complains -- a bonehead requirement that will drive up the cost of the new building and make things a little awkward for patients. “You’ll have women up in stirrups in front of a big picture window.”

The neighborhood is full of eyesores and code violations, Hannah and Zwerdling point out, including burned-out buildings that sit untouched. So why would city officials become sticklers for aesthetic detail and make life all the more difficult for people trying to do good work?

Former City Councilman Mike Hernandez, now an assistant to two members of the City Council, admitted to some miscommunication at City Hall. But he said the owners of the health clinic “want things done yesterday,” even if certain zoning issues ordinarily take months to iron out.

“They’re doing the kind of work we want to be supportive of,” Hernandez said. “But I can’t change the process they have to go through.”

Hernandez said City Councilman Bernard C. Parks would soon be hearing all about the clinic, which is in his district. And Hernandez predicted his boss would be happy to help.

Maybe Parks and Villaraigosa, who teamed up during an election in which they called for a new day in Los Angeles, can visit the clinic together.

Given the widespread failures of the healthcare system, the shortage of doctors in certain ZIP Codes and the King/Drew Medical Center fiasco -- which has driven even more patients to Dorothy Mae -- you’d think they’d be racing to 89th and Broadway to help in any way they can.

Break a leg, guys.

Reach the columnist at steve.lopez@latimes.com and read previous columns at www.latimes.com/lopez.