The Coastal Health Alliance’s small clinic in Stinson Beach, temporarily closed since July due to the departure of staff members, will reopen in March, said Steven Siegel, the nonprofit’s executive director. The two-day-a-week clinic served about 240 patients with around 100 visits per month.
Dr. Rosalia Mendoza worked at the Stinson clinic since joining the alliance in 2015, but left last year, as did Dr. Eric Holmberg, who had worked in Point Reyes Station since 1992, according to C.H.A.’s website.
According to Mr. Siegel, the turnover in C.H.A. staff during 2016 was notable; throughout the year, 15 new staffers joined the group, filling most, but not all, of the vacated positions.
Dr. Anna O’Malley, who also worked in Stinson, continues to provide care for C.H.A., as does Dr. Edwin Munich, but the two are now completing the duties of four M.D.s. The Stinson clinic’s support staff have been working at the alliance’s two other clinics, in Point Reyes Station and Bolinas.
Mr. Siegel said he is still recruiting a fulltime doctor for the Stinson clinic, and said if he doesn’t find one by March, the clinic will only open one day a week. Staff are offered a premium to travel the lengthy distances to the Bolinas and Stinson clinics, he said.
For him, the ideal candidate is willing to embrace the West Marin lifestyle. “Ideally we get somebody who would hang out at Toby’s, read the newspaper and go to events at the Dance Palace,” he said. “I think the best way to [find someone] is through networking; people read the paper and listen to [KWMR] and they have friends. C.H.A. is a community health center and the best solution is recruiting from the community.”
But, he said, he’s been “without luck” in past efforts to recruit locally; less than 20 percent of his staff live in West Marin, while the rest commute from all corners of the Bay Area.
Mr. Siegel said that for years C.H.A. has considered permanently closing the Stinson Beach clinic due to the difficulties associated with operating in a remote area. But he said the clinic is part of a larger organization. “There’s a low overhead,” he said. “Due to its small size and part-time status, it isn’t resource-intensive and the financial impact on the larger organization is minimal. And the point is to provide at least some [health] access to the community.”
Fourth-generation resident Christine Airey said it was convenient to have a clinic within walking distance. “I can get into my car, but I like walking down to the clinic,” she said.
Al Engel, a real estate agent in Stinson who donated the land that houses the clinic in the 1990s, said there may have been a “transportation problem” for some of the Stinson Beach patients who had to travel to Bolinas or over the hill for health care since the clinic’s closure. “[But] we’re happy to have what we have,” he said.
“The big problem,” he continued, “is not money. The problem is filling positions. [C.H.A.] has canvassed schools but everybody is looking for someone. There’s just a shortage of people coming out of school; everybody is clamoring for them.”