The medical clinic at Martha’s Village & Kitchen has been serving the uninsured homeless in the Coachella Valley since March 2002. The clinic is supported entirely by donations and grants, all services are free to eligible patients and is a registered Licensed Community Clinic.

The clinic is open Monday – Friday from 9:00 AM -5:00 PM and medical care is provided under the clinical guidance of Krista Burris Kim M.D. and Dr. Michael Kim.

Dr. Burris Kim, Medical Director, is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, and Dr. Michael Kim, our Associate Medical Director, specializes in Family Practice and Psychiatry. Supplementing the clinic staff are four Board Certified volunteer physicians, a full-time family medicine physician, a volunteer optometrist, pediatric residents from Loma Linda University, and nursing students from College of the Desert, a full-time registered nurse specializing in wound care, and a medical assistant.

During the last 6 months, the clinic served:

• Accommodated 643 triage visits for individuals that otherwise may have ended up in local emergency rooms. Only 5 persons were referred to an emergency room during that period for medical care beyond the scope of the clinic’s capabilities.
  
  
• Dispensed 3,780 prescriptions for 568 patients.
  The majority of medications were for management of diabetes, asthma, anxiety, depression and hypertension.
  
  
• Administered 233 TB screenings and 82 flu shots.
  
  
• 498 individuals participated in three vision screening clinics.
  
  
• 461 pairs of prescription glasses were dispensed.
  

Homeless persons, infants and children without housing are in fair or poor health twice as often as other children and have four times the rate of asthma, higher rates of anxiety and depression, and lower rates of childhood immunizations. Mothers who are homeless have more acute and chronic health problems than the general population of females under 45 years of age have chronic asthma, depression and anxiety related disorders more than four times the general population rate, and anemia at ten times the general population rate.

Clinical performance related to preventative care and chronic disease management goals include HbA1c control in patients with diabetes hypertension control, Pap testing, referrals for mammography screening, and colorectal cancer screenings.