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Press ReleaseJanuary 22, 2004 CONTACT: Karen Gottlieb Kiwanis Club hears talk on AmeriCares Bulletin,Wilton,CT, January 22, 2004 - Recently Wiltonian Curt Welling, AmeriCares CEO, and Karen Gottlieb, executive director of AmeriCares Free Clinics, addressed the Wilton Kiwanis membership on the mission of AmeriCares Free Clinics which is to provide free primary care to uninsured and underinsured persons in a setting where all individuals are treated with dignity and respect. Before AmeriCares Free Clinics was established in 1994, the organization assessed the need for the free clinic in various communities. It was discovered that 300,000 were underinsured. The uninsured and underinsured together comprised 18% of the state's population. In Fairfield county specifically, 8.7% of the state's population was non-elderly, working and unisured. In Norwalk and Danbury, 23% and 24.6% of the population, respectively, fell into the $15,000 to $34,999 income group most vulnerable to uninsured status. By offering free primary care to the uninsured and underinsured, AmeriCares Free Clinics can diagnose and treat illness before the illness reaches a crisis stages, there by redusing avoiable hospital stays and emergency room visits and the health of individuals improve. AmeriCares Free Clincs accepts no federal government funding, instead it operated with private donations and volunteer services, AmeriCares Free Clinics Inc. is a non-profit organization. |