Nation
Little clinic run by Order of Malta close to serving its 25,000th patient
By Michele Jurich
Posted: 3/31/2017
Dr. Vona Lorenzano and Dr. Thomas Wallace meet Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, a church law expert and former head of the Vatican's highest court, March 19 at the free Order Of Malta health clinic in Oakland, Calif. Cardinal Burke visited the clinic to offer his blessing, and get a glimpse of how the uninsured are treated. (CNS photo/Michele Jurich, The Catholic Voice)
OAKLAND, Calif. (CNS) -- The Order of Malta Clinic of Northern California is expecting to receive its 25,000th patient visit sometime in this spring.
What the clinic didn't expect this year was a visit from the patron of the Order of Malta. U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke came by on a Sunday afternoon to offer his blessing, and get a glimpse of how the uninsured are treated at the clinic at the Cathedral of Christ the Light.
The cardinal, who had been to San Francisco the previous week for a canon law conference, crossed the bay March 19 to celebrate Mass at St. Margaret Mary Church in Oakland before coming to the cathedral.
Members of the Order of Malta, who have nurtured the clinic through its first eight years, lined the waiting room as the cardinal arrived. The cardinal was greeted by Oakland Bishop Michael C. Barber and Father George Mockel, vicar general.
In turn, the cardinal got to greet patient Sister Magdalene Yee, a Mercy sister who is now a member of the Servants of Christ Lay Community, as she came for a follow-up visit with the clinic's medical director, Dr. Vona Lorenzano.
"Welcome," the cardinal greeted Sister Yee.
With the patient's permission, the cardinal had the chance to observe as nurse practitioner Ron Connolly took her vital signs before escorting her to one of the clinic's three exam rooms.
In many respects, this is the little clinic that could. Staffed largely by volunteers -- among them, 25 doctors and 35 nurses, who carefully navigate its 1,800 square feet -- it's a medical center with specialists and something lacking in most medicine today: time. Appointments are scheduled in 30-minute increments.
No patient receives a bill for services. No insurance is billed. No government funds bolster its budget.
It operates on a budget of about half a million dollars a year, some provided by the Western Association of the Order of Malta, the remainder from donations, largely from Order of Malta members.
The clinic was formed at the request of then-Bishop Allen H. Vigneron of Oakland, now archbishop of Detroit, who had been inspired during a trip to Lourdes, France, with the Order of Malta. And it has grown.
Among those dedicated to this ministering is Dr. Thomas Wallace, a neurologist who was approached about volunteering at the clinic by a fellow parishioner at St. Theresa Parish in Oakland.
In addition to his hours in the clinic, Wallace has twice been part of the order's annual journey to Lourdes with the sick.
He finds the work at the clinic rewarding: no insurance and no computers.
Wallace will become a member of the Order of Malta this spring.
The clinic, in the chancery building at Oakland's Cathedral of Christ the Light, continues to invite doctors to volunteer, and is forging partnerships with nursing and nurse practitioner programs at Samuel Merritt University and the University of California San Francisco. The clinic has become a rotation for Kaiser's resident physicians.
An offshoot of the clinic is a monthly podiatry clinic at a community center run by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. People who spend their days, and sometimes nights, on their feet have been appreciative.
After blessing a statue of Mary, which had been brought from Lourdes, Cardinal Burke was escorted next door to the even tinier Pope Francis Legal Clinic, where director Tom Greerty, who also is a member of the Order of Malta, showed the cardinal the consultation room, where attorneys have been meeting with clients at no charge, two days a week since last summer.
Greerty showed the cardinal a copy of the advance directive for medical care, which the attorneys have been distributing, calling it a major issue of our time.
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Editor's Note: Information about both clinics, including how to start a legal clinic, is available at www.oakdiocese.org; click on the legal clinic link.
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Jurich is a staff writer at The Catholic Voice, newspaper of the Diocese of Oakland.
