The clients and employees of the Glendale Health Center are urging the County to abandon its plans to privatize the clinic. The center is currently run directly by the LA County Department of Health Services and serves 3,400 patients each year - 2,800 of them uninsured. Center supporters have told Supervisors that the County's network of public-private partnership clinics is already financially at risk, and privatizing Glendale Health Center will increase the denial of service to uninsured patients and costs from emergency room visits.

The clinic is a medical home for patients who have established relationships with the doctors and staff. Over half of the patients are either Armenian or Latino and cultural competency is the key to those relationships. "Our staff makes patients comfortable. Our relationships are very warm and friendly," says Marina Manukian, a licensed vocational nurse at the clinic. "As an Armenian in an Armenian community, I like being able to speak to and help a patient in their language."

Anoosh Tarverdi has been a patient at Glendale Health Center for the last four years. "The helpful and friendly staff left a wonderful impression on me," Anoosh says. "I also appreciate the fact that the clinic is affordable and that I don't have to travel more than a mile to get there."

Patients travel from Lancaster, San Fernando and other parts of the county to seek care at Glendale despite the fact that there are clinics closer to their homes. "You like the doctor, you stay with that doctor," says Marina. "You feel safe, professionally treated and you know that someone genuinely cares about you."

Glendale Health Center provides a range of services from family medicine, cancer detection to family planning, but services and access to the clinic are eroding. Because the L.A. County Health Services department has reduced the number of clinics in half, Glendale's patients wait longer for available appointments. Over half of the registered nurses have been transferred. Now, more and more patients must find other care.

"The clinic is like a family," says Kyung Bak, a registered nurse at Glendale Health Center. "We have real relationships with our patients. Privatizing the clinic would take this home away from our patients."

Clients and staff hope the national drive for affordable health care will have positive results for community-based clinics like Glendale Health Center. They also say that with so much changing in health care, this is no time to take risks with a program that works and stick taxpayers with an expensive plan.