People's Community Clinic
Reverse Discrimination Rip-Off, Most African Americans and "White" People Refused

The ORIGINAL name of this clinic was People's Free Clinic and it was born in Austin, Texas underneath the Statue of Jefferson Davis on the University of Texas campus near "The Tower." It was on a card table with a crash cart of donated medical supplies standing beside it with folding chairs for the volunteer medics.

The core of the very first workers were volunteers who were trained to handle medical emergencies by a guy who had napalm scars on him who had been a medic in Vietenam and was now in the University's school of nursing, I believe.

I was one of the people who volunteered and we were being trained to handle medical emergencies that might have occurred as the result of the counterdemonstration that was going to happen as a result of the Kent State Massacre, an antiwar demonstration in which Ohio National Guard killed some people protesting against the Vietnam War. UT students were going to have a Demonstration to protest the killings and the Vietnam War.

They like to FORGET where the clinic started but that's the TRUTH because I WAS THERE AND I KNOW. It was in 1969 or 1970, I forgot which and I was the last medic left at the statue. After the Demonstration, they moved the leftover medical supplies to the basement of the Congregational Church and that's where the Clinic operated with the very BEST OB and GYN doctors and nurses volunteering their time. It was also known as a Venereal Disease treatment and Pregnancy Test place, primarily although there were certainly a lot of other illnesses treated there. It was very badly needed at the time. I volunteered there sometimes as a clerical worker and sometimes I screened patients, took their information, etc.

One older doctor told me it was a happy place where he could just relax, get away from his office and get back to practicing "real medicine."

Several came out of retirement because they wanted to feel needed and they certainly were: needed, appreciated and revered beyond measure!

I left and went to Dallas as soon as I could get out of Austin and didn't come back until my father's terminal illness and he needed someone to take care of him.

When I came back, what a difference! The clinic was now affiliated with St. David's Hospital which was and prehaps continues to be an upscale hospital for these many years as opposed to Brackenridge Hospital which generally known as the public emergency hospital. There are a series of income level, elgibility rules hurtles that anyone who needs care now has to overcome!
OR NOT! The present clientele is almost 100 percent "UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS."

I noticed this sad state of affairs when I went in to try and make an appointment. Nobody spoke English and ignored me as long as they could. Finally, the lady behind the desk spoke Spanish to me, which, of course, I understand and am quite fluent in this, my FATHER'S language! She was shocked that a "whitie" could speak Spanish and remarked as much in Spanish until it sunk in her surprised head that I might be of Hispanic origins as well and I UNDERSTOOD EVERYTHING SHE SAID. She then ordered me arrogantly out of the clinic saying that they did not treat "people like me and did not want people like me in THEIR clinic!"

This was in 1994!

Something they never had to have before, a SECURITY OFFICER outside with the ability to summon an ARMED SECURITY PATROL OFFICER for back up in case they have any problems. Problems that were unthinkable in the 1970s!

Problems, perhaps, with desparate poor white and African American people wanting treatment for their children and being turned away for reasons that, to me, were becoming more hateful and obvious by the minute...

When I went outside, there was an African American man crying with pain at the bus stop. He had an infected wound on his foot and didn't have money to go to the ER. Seems like AMERICANS here can not get affordable health care and he had been turned away from the clinic. I went to my brother's car, got the First Aid Kit and some stuff we regular keep in there, put on the plastic gloves, washed his wound out with hydrogen peroxide and debriding it with a guaze pad, then put some antibiotic ointment on it and some industrial strength band-aids to keep out the dirt and told him to go to the Salvation Army and their medical clinic might see him in the morning. It was all I could do. SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE to allieviate human suffering!

I began to research this place and found out that it was NOW "primarily for treating UNDOCUMENTED NON-ENGLISH SPEAKING INDIGENT PEOPLE." Well, they aren't the ONLY indigent, low-income people here. I talked to people in the lower income African American and white and even some Vietnamese areas and was told the same thing, that anyone who wanted treatment there was wasting their time if they were not "undocumented workers."

I was also severely injured in a recent accident and the EMT Ambulance took me to Saint David's. The injury was so severe that the doctor in the ER thought I needed a follow-up and they referred me to —guess where — THE PEOPLE'S COMMUNITY CLINIC! Since I, like millions of other Texans, did not have health insurance. (Never have been able to AFFORD any although I have worked hard all my life!) When I told the lady who did the referral that they would NOT see me or treat me in there, she told me I was mistaken and that I should be extremely FORTUNATE that I was getting a referral from them that GUARANTEED that I would be treated because it was very rare that they would agree to see anyone, even with a direct referral like I had...

I had my misgivings, because the first time I had to go there, somebody from behind the counter said (translated into English): "what does that stupid Old white b*h want in here? She's probably a w*e with AIDS/SIDA!" And somebody else replied: "Don't she know that we don't want no white or N-word in here!"

But I showed up and met the same sort of glaring, surly personnel behind the counter as last time. They looked at me like I was garbage and they made the usual remarks in Spanish about how I did not need to be in their clinic, thinking that I did NOT understand my father's language! They deliberately chose to speak a pigdin English to me and I played along because I wanted to see if all of the complaints I heard were true.

As my eyes scanned the waiting room, people were crammed together very closely, almost in each other's faces. This was primarily a place where the undocumented women came for prenatal and postpartum care with their "American citizen anchor babies" —most without fathers present and ALL the people's taxes are paying for this in donations and various grants in aid!
Also, busy pediatrics and only one African American in the entire clinic who was with a Latino boyfriend or husband and easily into her second trimester of pregnancy.

A lady came into the waiting room from the treatment area and called a name. Sounded like Russian or something until I realized that she was calling the name my paternal grandfather brought to Mexico from Germany, MY NAME and deliberately mispronouncing it so that I would miss my appointment slot and they could have someone more politically correct respond.

I went in and it turned out she was an intake worker and that her English was as least as good as mine. The first thing she asked me was how was I going to PAY for this treatment. I looked at the clipboard she had and saw that there were about five to six people scheduled for the same appointment slot... Right then, the telephone rang, and she answered and it turned out to be a friend of a friend who had been referred to the clinic and she told the person (in Spanish) to "come on in because I am dealing with a white (expletive deleted) and she won't be here much longer and you can have her place." A pause, then a reassuring, "Don't worry, for you it's free of charge. "Then she turns to me IN MY FACE and says in English, " We can't treat you if you can't pay! And I want cash!" I then protested in Spanish, " Why are you letting that person have my appointment date before you know if I can pay or not and it is free to them!"

She was SHOCKED BEYOND MEASURE that I had understood her and her entire telephone conversation. She told me to get out or she would get security to put me out. And so I left. I feel beyond a resonable doubt that PERHAPS she was wanting a bribe from me!

So I am warning people now about this place!

If you are white or african american or in my case, a light-complected person of mexican origin, do not even waste your time with these people!

This was in by the way.

I also forgot to tell those ignorant people that the history of Mexico incoludes the importation to their country of many Chinese and African American slave laborers, the very many different indigenous peoples already there and all intermarried with people from SPAIN and other places in EUROPE.

So who is mexican? There are mexicans of many races, colors and religions!

There is no one mexican race, people, anymore than there is just one american race! We are all mixed up. We are all human beings!

This display of ignorance, barbarity and hatred has NO EXCUSE in PATIENT CARE!

I won't say the medical personnel discriminated because I never had the opportunity to see them because of the RABID "LA RAZA" idiots in the front who DID DISCRIMINATE!

I get tears in my eyes thinking about the dream we had for EVERYBODY who was poor to get medical treatment from people who wanted to practice "real medicine" and those who would intern here and be inspired to go into the health field careers and likewise practice "real medicine" where the patients were!

And how it has deteriorated into a HATE-FILLED, DISCRIMINATORY hell.

And WHOEVER is sponsoring this Discrimination Flea Circus had better do something about the rampant, flagrant discrimination that is happening in this clinic of theirs.

On their webpages it says IN ENGLISH:
"Improving the health of medically underserved and uninsured Central Texas children and adults by providing high quality, affordable healthcare."

Company: People's Community Clinic
Country: USA
State: Texas
City: Austin
Address: 2909 North IH-35
Phone: 5124784939

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