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Pasco To Lure Doctors to Aid Medically Needy
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Published: January 22, 2008
NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. – As many as 70,000 low-income Pasco residents might be doing without medical care, the Pasco County Health Department director, Dr. David Johnson, told county commissioners today.
Many nonprofit community groups provide routine care for medically indigent people, according to Johnson. Only eight medical specialists in Pasco volunteer to see the "sickest of the sick" patients with unusual ailments, he said.
A recruitment program the County Commission endorsed today aims to change that.
Commissioners approved a joint agreement under which the county's human services division will provide limited personnel and auxiliary services support to We Care of Pasco.
We Care of Pasco will try to sign up some 150 physicians, Johnson said. A similar program operates in Polk County, he reported.
With the help of the extra doctors, nonprofit groups could reach many more impoverished patients, Johnson said.
The We Care nonprofit group will try to arrange to shield doctors from some legal liability under Florida's sovereign immunity law. Health care providers for low-income folks are contracted as "agents of the state," Johnson explained during a presentation. The state then assumes liability.
The fear of being sued has been the stumbling block to get more doctors to participate in medical programs to aid the needy, Commissioner Ann Hildebrand said. She is involved with the Good Samaritan Health Clinic, one of the nonprofit agencies that would benefit from We Care.
"This program is fantastic," Commissioner Jack Mariano said. It should help keep people with noncritical medical problems and no health insurance from seeking care in hospital emergency rooms, he said.
Commissioner Pat Mulieri said she knows a lot of Shady Hills-area residents who simply don't go to doctors now. She hopes the We Care effort could change their minds.
The proposed We Care program would be supported by the Health Department, Specialty Physicians of Pasco County, the Pasco Human Services Department, Florida Department of Health and the Pasco County Medical Society, according to Johnson.
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