It has been eight months and 620 patients since the Clinica Madre de Dios opened its doors. Despite a lack of official nonprofit status, making some grants unavailable, the clinic has plans to offer more health services.

Founder Dr. Carlos Espinosa sought to fill part of the hole left when the free ASK clinic shut its doors nearly a year ago. The clinic is designed to help low-income Hispanic clients with no insurance. According to Dr. Sue Walstra, the clinic has a 75 percent Hispanic clientele base with the other 25 percent made up of Burmese, African Americans and Caucasians.

“Right now because of the experience of our practitioners we are primarily seeing ages 15 years and up. We don't generally see children and we don't treat pregnant women,” said Walstra.

Along with Espinosa, the clinic has four nurse practitioners, a registered nurse and a clinical medical assistant.

The clinic consists of a waiting room, pharmacy, an office and lab room and three medical examination cubicles. Most of the signs are in Spanish, a reminder that it opened to serve the needs of the Hispanic community. Freshly painted walls are a sandy brown. A long church pew provides seating in the waiting room, which is also the hallway.

The clinic is in the basement of the old St. Patrick's Catholic School, where the ASK Clinic was, next to the church, 2120 S. Harrison St. Walstra says they have recently installed new outlets to plug in the new electrical heating units that St. Patrick's has been generous enough to buy for them; the clinic will be paying them back as it can.

The clinic is in the process of filing the paper work for a nonprofit 501 (c)3 tax exemption status. Currently most of the grants it can apply for as an official nonprofit are out of reach.

“The church and the Diocese (of Fort Wayne-South Bend) help some; we emptied our pockets with the renovations. We go to our churches and beg, and they have helped. ” said Walstra. Despite the financial handicaps the clinic continues to serve its clientele in new ways. Starting in January it will begin a blood pressure/cardiac clinic. Nov. 12 marked the first monthly gynecology clinicThe clinic will be held 7-10 p.m. the second Thursday of every month. One exception: the clinic will be held next week on Thursday. They are in the process of becoming certified to use the Indiana Breast and Cervical Cancer Program, for women 50 and older who have no insurance to be tested for cervical and breast cancer for free. For women younger than 50, they have an agreement with LabCorp for a discount, taking the price down to $40. It will be up to the patient to pay the fee.