News From AmeriCares Free Clinics

Norwalk Clinic Renamed for Founder

AmeriCares Free Clinics Executive Director Karen Gottlieb (left) shows Leila Macauley the clinic’s new exterior sign bearing her late husband’s name.

Bob Macauley was in his New Canaan, Conn. office in 1992 when a news report about the uninsured flashed on the television screen. In his home state, 9 percent of state residents were uninsured and just as many were underinsured. Bob reacted to the statistics just as he did to news of floods, landslides, earthquakes and other disasters halfway around the world – help was on the way.

“Bob was a man of action and decided a free clinic was needed,” said AmeriCares Free Clinics Executive Director Karen Gottlieb. “We have been helping the uninsured here in Connecticut ever since.”

Bob, a paper company executive who founded AmeriCares in 1982, knew little about the business of health care when he set out to open the Norwalk clinic, but he didn’t let that stop him. Clinics in Danbury and Bridgeport followed.

Now the Norwalk clinic, our flagship location, has been renamed in honor of the man who went to great lengths to help people in need, whether around the world or around the corner. Bob passed away in December 2010 at the age of 87. His family, clinic volunteers, staff, and community leaders will be on hand for a dedication ceremony on June 22, 2011 at the clinic now known as the Bob Macauley AmeriCares Free Clinic.

Dr. Robert Macauley Jr., a pediatrician in Vermont, said his father was a spiritual man who felt a responsibility to help those who could not help themselves.

 

AmeriCares founder Bob Macauley

 

 

Norwalk clinic patient Kevin, age 12, thanked Mrs. Macauley for starting the clinic with her husband Bob. “It was such a great idea,” he told her.

“And nowhere was my father’s passion for helping those in need more evident than in the AmeriCares Free Clinics, where I had the honor of volunteering as a physician,” the younger Macauley said. “He felt that everyone had the right to be cared for with dignity and respect, and the Free Clinics have helped so many people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to health care.”

Today, our three clinics provide $5 million worth of free medical care to 3,000 Connecticut residents annually. Over 300 doctors, nurses, interpreters and administrative volunteers donate their time and expertise to help their neighbors in need. Patients are treated for episodic illnesses as well as chronic health conditions such as heart disease, asthma and diabetes.

“One of Bob’s mottos was ‘make things happen’ and he did – whether it was sending aid to a war-torn nation or to people suffering from extreme poverty here at home,” Gottlieb said. “As Bob once said, ‘You have to have the audacity to make a commitment and go. That’s when the miracles happen.’”