“I hope whatever the problem is can be worked out,” says Gussie Anderson.
Gussie Anderson blocks out an entire day any time she or her husband, Elder Anderson, need to go to the doctor.
For the last year, Elder Anderson, 79, has been unable to get out of bed or even sit up by himself. He has emphysema, a debilitating lung disease. He also has a bad leg and problems with his feet.
“My husband can’t do anything for himself,” said Gussie Anderson, 68. “He’s been in that kind of condition for at least a year. He was using a walker before that, but he can’t do that anymore.”
The Andersons’ periodic doctor visits are their only outings. For regular visits, they go to the Max C. Starkloff Health Center at 2220 Lemp Avenue, one of four neighborhood ConnectCare clinics. For more complicated tests or procedures, such as changing Elder Anderson’s catheter, they go to the main ConnectCare facility, the former Regional Hospital at 5535 Delmar Boulevard.
A ConnectCare van comes to pick the Andersons up at their home before each appointment. The driver-attendant helps Anderson out of bed, into a wheelchair and into and out of the van. Often they leave hours before an appointment and arrive home hours after the appointment is concluded.
“Sometimes you have to stay longer,” if another patient needs a ride, too, Gussie Anderson said. “Sometimes it’s crowded, or the doctor will order a test where you have to go to the lab.” That takes longer.
“The other day, we were at the doctor’s office by 1 p.m.,” she said. “But it was a quarter to five before we got home.”
The Andersons have been patients at city health clinics under various names for years. ConnectCare is the latest incarnation.
ConnectCare came into being in 1997, after Regional Hospital was closed and the city was in danger of losing the hospital’s satellite clinics. The system is designed to provide health care for poor patients who lack adequate health insurance.
Most ConnectCare patients who need hospitalization or specialty care are sent to one of the hospital groups that participate in funding ConnectCare — BJC Health System, SSM Health Care, Tenet and Unity Health.
Elder Anderson goes to St. Louis University Hospital or Forest Park Hospital (formerly Deaconess) if he is hospitalized, usually because of an emergency related to his emphysema. When he gets out of the hospital, Gussie Anderson takes him back to the clinic, where the doctor reviews and reissues prescriptions so the Andersons can purchase them at a reduced price.
Gussie Anderson said she is satisfied with the care she and her husband receive at the Starkloff clinic and at the main ConnectCare facility. She has heart disease and has had a bypass operation, but she takes few medications and is otherwise in fairly good health.
“I really and truly don’t know where we would go” if it wasn’t for Conn ectCare, where their doctor visits cost $15 and prescriptions cost $7.50.
Elder Anderson, a retired Missouri Pacific railroad clerk, has a small pension, and the couple gets Social Security. He has Part A Medicare insurance, which covers only hospitalization expenses. Gussie Anderson, who is retired from the Prince Gardner wallet factory, has Medicare Part A and Part B, which covers some doctor’s bills.
At the Shaw neighborhood flat the Andersons have shared for 27 years, Gussie Anderson’s days are filled with the myriad tasks of caring for a bed-bound man. She cooks Elder’s meals and feeds him, changes his bedding, dresses him and cleans him up when he soils himself. She makes sure he uses his inhaler four times a day.
Gussie Anderson has a few minutes to herself on the five mornings a week that a home health nurse comes to give Anderson a bath and help him sit on the side of the bed for a little while. Gussie Anderson said she isn’t strong enough to move her husband on her own.
Elder Anderson is a cheerful patient with a quick sense of humor. That makes life easier, Gussie Anderson said.
“My husband is getting along very well, with the complaints he has. He laughs and talks and watches television. He has a hospital bed that will allow him to sit up. But he can’t do it on his own.”
When told that ConnectCare is facing a shortfall in funding next year that may force reductions in services, Gussie Anderson chooses to be optimistic.
“We definitely need these clinics,” she said. “We’re on a fixed income. We don’t have money to pay $75 or $80 to see the doctor and $50 or $75 for a prescription.”
“I hope whatever the problem is, it can be worked out.”
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