OAK HARBOR – A nonprofit dental clinic serving Island County’s low-income children and adults, who have had trouble getting care since the closing of a previous clinic in 2002, opens its doors today.
“It’s a very big deal,” said Dr. Roger Case, health officer for Island County Public Health.
The clinic will serve the county’s Medicaid-eligible, low- income and uninsured dental patients.
Until now, these patients struggled to get dental care. They sometimes had to travel to nonprofit clinics as far away as Burlington.
Of the 7,300 children and adults on Medicaid in Island County last year, only 16 percent received dental services.
“That tells you right off the bat that, obviously, there are people who aren’t able to receive care,” said John Davis, who oversees Medicaid’s dental program for the state Department of Social and Health Services.
Case, other public health officials and volunteers worked for several years to get a dental clinic in Island County for those who otherwise might not be able to get regular checkups and other care.
The clinic, at 31775 Highway 20, is operated by SeaMar Community Health Centers. The nonprofit organization offers medical and dental services throughout Western Washington, primarily to low-income and uninsured patients.
In Snohomish County, it has both a dental and a medical clinic in Marysville. This is the first time SeaMar has offered services in Island County.
Twenty percent to 30 percent of the nearly 200 patients who come each week to SeaMar’s Mount Vernon and Burlington dental clinics are from Island County, said Alex Sandoval, who supervises those clinics.
SeaMar’s 1,200-square-foot-clinic in Oak Harbor has four dental exam rooms and expects to have up to 2,800 patient visits in its first year, said Mary Bartolo, the organization’s deputy director.
The clinic is open to anyone. Services are provided on a sliding-fee scale.
A gap in dental services for low-income patients occurred when a nonprofit clinic operated by Whidbey General Hospital closed in 2002, Case said.
After that, dentists volunteered at a clinic to serve low-income patients two days a week, Case said. But that effort ceased after nine months, “when they saw no light at the end of the tunnel” for finding a permanent way to keep the clinic open.
That left the county’s low-income residents without a local nonprofit dental clinic for more than three years, Case said.
“There’s been a big outcry” from people who said they had no place to go to get dental care, Case said.
Due to the pent-up demand, SeaMar’s clinic will be filled up with patients “inside of three weeks,” he said.
SeaMar Community Dental Clinic, which will serve low-income, Medicaid and uninsured patients, opens today in Oak Harbor at 31775 Highway 20, Suite A-3. It will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Starting today, patients can call the clinic at 360-679-9216.
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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