Had it not been for Clínica Tepeyac, Señora Molina, an uninsured, nonEnglish-speaking single mother of three, might not have had her breast cancer diagnosed early – or at all.
Marta and Baldemar, also residents of the neighborhood surrounding Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, are poor, but when their children are sick, they want help, not attitude. That is why the couple is so grateful for the nonjudgmental care given by Clínica Tepeyac’s volunteer staff of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals.
These patients, whose full names are not used to protect their privacy, and many others consider Clínica Tepeyac a gift from the heavens.
Which, in a way, should be no surprise. Clínica Tepeyac is in a Kalamath Street house where a century ago the saintly Mother Frances Cabrini found two abandoned children on the doorstep. The youngsters became the first residents of an orphanage that Mother Cabrini operated for many years in north Denver.
The idea for a culturally friendly, low-cost clinic in north Denver came in 1994 after a group of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church parishioners led by Jim Garcia conducted a survey that showed the impoverished, uninsured, largely Spanish- speaking population around the church had nowhere to turn.
Garcia’s troupe took what Clínica Tepeyac’s executive director, David Lack, describes as “a dilapidated old house that should have been condemned and scrapped” and transformed it into a 1,000-square- foot clinic with two exam rooms. Clínica Tepeyac opened in 1995.
Today, Lack says, Clínica Tepeyac serves about 6,000 patients a year and has a budget approaching $900,000. The agency is seeking funding from this year’s Post/News Season to Share campaign.
“In any given week,” he adds, “we’ll have 80 to 100 appointment slots available and four times as many requests.” Patients are asked to pay $10 a visit; prescriptions are $3 for a 30-day supply.
In mid-November, Clínica Tepeyac moves to new quarters in the Globeville neighborhood. “We’ll have three times the floor space, seven exam rooms, a sizable conference room, laboratory, pharmacy, office space, doctors’ rooms and a waiting room that will hold 25,” Lack says.
The current location will become a community center with one exam room to accommodate flu shots and childhood immunization clinics and mobile mammography days.
Longtime Clínica Tepeyac volunteer Ann Shumacher, a nun and medical doctor, is being hired as Clínica Tepeyac’s first paid physician.
Clínica Tepeyac, Lack says, has been “blessed with more than our share of miracles, not the least of which is the philanthropy of the medical community. Doctors, after spending a full day in their own exam rooms, will come here and spend another three to four hours with us. Hospitals will donate used equipment to us, and one of our grant partners enables us to give up to 600 free mammograms a year.”
Still, Lack adds: “We are the safety net that’s under the existing safety-net provider. If it were not for us, a lot of people would have nowhere else to go.”
Society editor Joanne Davidson can be reached at 303-809-1314 or jdavidson@denverpost.com.
