Patients & partners

Healthcare | Invisible to the healthcare debate in Washington, clinics that serve the poor could provide a model for helping the uninsured | Edward Lee Pitts

Bowen Rodkey for WORLD

Zaarephath, N.J.—The line of patients usually forms long before the clinic doors are opened. This night is no different: Nearly 40 people are waiting for their turn with two volunteer doctors at a cottage turned clinic on the campus of a local church.

Once inside one of two examining rooms at the Zarephath Health Center, the patients, many of them repeat customers, frequently utter the same two words: I'm miserable.

There are Sabine, 51, who lost her job as manager of a craft store her first workday back from surgery, and Jessica, 22, who no longer can afford the $88 a month it costs to see her regular doctor, plus Brenda, 48, who winces and shakes as the staff pricks her finger to test her blood sugar.