State budget ends clinic's string of bad luck

Good Samaritan is one of a dozen local projects waiting for Gov. Jeb Bush's approval.

By MELIA BOWIE and BRIDGET HALL GRUMET
Published May 4, 2005

NEW PORT RICHEY - Barbara Holton got the bad news last week when she returned from vacation.

The Good Samaritan Health Clinic, a mobile home where low-income residents have flocked for medical care since 1992, already had termites. The crowded clinic was seeing more and more uninsured patients - up 20 percent from this time last year.

But now it had fleas.

"Fleas?" Holton, the clinic's director, asked her staff. "We have got to get out of this building."

This week that goal finally seems attainable. The clinic was among a dozen local projects included in the proposed 2005-2006 state budget.

At the urging of state Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, lawmakers included $350,000 for Good Samaritan. That money, combined with another $500,000 the clinic is seeking in federal grants channeled through Pasco County government, would enable the clinic to move from its site at 4035 Thys Road.

Good Samaritan was competing with others for the money including Morton Plant North Bay Hospital, which proposed building its own $1.15-million "charity" walk-in clinic for the uninsured.

On Tuesday morning, Fasano called Holton with the good news: The funding for Good Samaritan was in the state budget, which now awaits Gov. Jeb Bush's signature.

"I started crying," Holton said.

Clinic officials say they have a building lined up to move into near Community Hospital and are budgeting about $750,000 to $800,000 for the site.

"Probably we'd have to close on it by the end of July," Holton said.

Morton Plant North Bay hospital, which sought $750,000 in state money for its own clinic, did not make the cut, said Fasano aide Greg Giordano.

But the proposed $63.5-billion state budget includes money for other local projects, which the governor can either approve or veto. They include:

$10.6-million to buy right of way to widen State Road 52 from the Suncoast Parkway to U.S. 41.

$4.1-million for child abuse investigations conducted by the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.

$4-million for a regional water project that would make reclaimed water available for 30,000 residents in Pasco and Hillsborough counties.

$750,000 for Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services, for a program that helps noncustodial parents in Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough counties get jobs so they can pay their child support.

$725,000 for Operation PAR's adolescent intervention center in New Port Richey.

$565,000 for a new senior center in Zephyrhills, which would house the county's elderly nutrition program and serve as a special needs shelter.

$531,779 for a new county library in Trinity.

$500,000 in seed money for a Pasco-Hernando Community College campus in Wesley Chapel.

$200,000 for the Harbor Behavioral Healthcare Institute to provide emergency mental health services to children in Pasco and Hernando counties.

$100,000 for Alzheimer's Mobile Services in Pasco and 16 other counties.

$50,000 for Pasco Association for Challenged Kids, which runs a summer camp for disabled youths.

$7,500 for Faith in Action, a nonprofit agency that provides the "Strong for Life" exercise program to help elderly patients rebuild their muscles. The money would allow the north Pinellas group to expand its services into Pasco County, Giordano said.

The budget also includes $1-million, championed by Hudson cardiologist Rao Musunuru, to buy heart defibrillators for law enforcement vehicles across the state.

Roving patrol cars often can respond sooner than an ambulance at a station, and every minute counts when someone goes in to cardiac arrest, Musunuru said. If the heart is not restarted, a person can become brain damaged within seven minutes and die within 10 minutes, he said.

"I can't think of any other simpler thing we could do to literally make a difference between life or death," he said.

[Last modified May 4, 2005, 00:58:13]