News and Events
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January 5, 2012
Lagune Beach Coatline Pilot
by Cynthia Frasier
Advanced HIV test available in Laguna
Innovative procedure shows if antigens from virus are present in the bloodstream and can be performed 17 days after exposure. — "The new test is an exciting development in the detection and early treatment of HIV/AIDS," de St. Paer said. "It's been the same basic test for 20 years. Now people have a choice."
Since offering the test in late November for $40, about 20 have been done, she said.
The test requires a blood sample, which is sent to UC Irvine's laboratory for the testing procedure.
The new test also determines if antibodies exist, so it provides an extra level of assurance in the results.
"The test was approved by the FDA in June, and we began offering it two weeks after the Mayo Clinic," de St. Paer said. "It's the most innovative of the new generation of HIV tests."
The test is offered anonymously on a walk-in basis at the clinic, and people who are concerned about the prospect of AIDS don't have to wait for a doctor's referral.
Dr. Tom Bent, the clinic's medical director, authorizes the testing on the spot. If the test is positive, and the person needs treatment, then his or her name is used.
Other people who have found the test beneficial are those in a new relationship, where one partner could have been exposed to the virus and is concerned about spreading it....
> Read full article in the Coastline Pilot
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September 26, 2011
Clinic Open House a Big Success
The Board of Directors of the Laguna Beach Community Clinic hosted an open house to the public on Thursday, September 22, from 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM.
 The Clinic opened its facility so that the community can become acquainted with its programs and resources. More than 120 guests attended the open house and many participated in a room-by-room tour of the clinic provided by board member Dr. Marion Jacobs.
Photo: Drs. Reshimi Sinha, Pamela Lawrence and Thomas Bent.
Board member Roya Cole, Doctor’s Ambulance and Waste Management Company sponsored the open house.
“We were so pleased to introduce family physician Dr. Reshmi Sinha, who has joined our medical team,” said Dr. Pamela Lawrence, President of the Board. “We are fortunate to have another full-time physician on staff in addition to Dr. Tom Bent.”
Dr. Sinha is a graduate from UCLA and served her family medicine residency at UCI. She is fluent in Spanish, Hindi and Bengali.
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August 15, 2011
Lagune Beach Independent
 Clinic’s Director Oversees Centers Countywide — Dr. Tom Bent, medical director and chief operating officer of the Laguna Beach Community Clinic, has been elected president of the Coalition of Orange County Community Health Centers.
The Coalition was established in 1974 as a support organization for independent clinics. “I hope to continue to advocate for people who can’t get health care, to encourage independent clinics to develop sources of non-governmental funding, and to create greater recognition of how these independent clinics strengthening our medical safety net in a period of great challenges to our health care system,” said Bent, a local resident, who has served fulltime as its director since 2002.
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December 16, 2010
Lagune Beach Coatline Pilot
Komen funds clinic breast program — The Laguna Beach Community Clinic Breast Care program has received two awards from the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure, Orange County.
A $70,000 award helps provide continuation of medical services in the Women's Health care program, such as education and early detection comprehensive breast care.
 The second grant is a floating fund that supports additional medical procedures such as needle biopsies, diagnostic mammograms, and ultrasound exams for women requiring additional diagnostic services.
Photo: Clinic Director Adriana Nieto-Sayegh receiving Komen Grants.
> Read article in Coastline Pilot
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November 25, 2010
Lagune Beach Coatline Pilot
by Cynthia Frasier
From Canyon To Cove: Making Laguna Beach a healthy place — It was 1970 and flower children were congregating in Laguna Beach, seeking free love and LSD. The inevitable results of all that partying and mind-expanding were taking a toll on the minds and bodies of the young — and on the resources of a small community.
In response, a group of civic-minded volunteer physicians got together and founded the Laguna Beach Free Clinic, one of a larger movement of free clinics around the country that sprang up to serve a huge, unmet need. The first Free Clinic opened up at Glenneyre Street and Park Avenue.
The clinic eventually moved to Ocean Avenue where Anastasia's restaurant is now, before relocating to its current address, 362 Third St.
"There were a lot of artists and hippies, and in 1970 a lot of people didn't have health insurance," he said. The clinic was officially licensed in 1985.
Forty years later, the Laguna Beach Community Clinic carries on the tradition of responding to the needs of an ever-evolving population of underserved or unserved people, including immigrants, very low-income people and the uninsured, whose ranks have swelled as the economy has taken a nosedive over the past few years.
In the interim, the city became "ground zero" in the AIDS epidemic, with the highest per capita rate of HIV infection in the nation. This created an enormous challenge in medicine, to which the Laguna clinic responded in full force with resources and pioneering early-intervention treatment of HIV infection under the eye of Dr. Korey Jorgensen, a renowned AIDS physician....
> Read full article in the Coastline Pilot
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October 21, 2010
Orange County Register
by Yvette Cabrera
Busy clinic doctors doubling as therapists —
It's been three years since the last recession officially began, and at least a year since it supposedly ended, but a grim spiral is still under way at Orange County's community clinics.
Last year, the 21 clinics that make up the Coalition of Orange County Community Clinics recorded a total of 685,522 patient visits – a 46 percent increase from 2008.
Many of those visits are the newly uninsured middle class – people like Amanda Gonzalez.
Gonzalez, 63, worked hard most of her life, and owned a home-cleaning business as recently as 2000. But that year she was in a car accident that left her severely injured and unable to work. Then, last summer, she lost her Aliso Viejo home in a settlement with her former husband.
So, last July, as Gonzalez contemplated her first steps as a homeless person, she did so knowing her entire income would be a disability check of $950 a month. Since then, she's been living in a tiny trailer and, at times, her Toyota 4Runner.
“It's my way of surviving, but it's hard,” she says. “I don't fit anywhere – anywhere. I want my home. I want to belong somewhere.”
One of the few places she's felt comfortable in the past year is the Laguna Beach Community Clinic.
A Medi-Cal patient, Gonzalez goes to the clinic about once a month. She receives much-needed physical care and, she says, something harder to find – kindness....
> Read full article in the OC Register
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April 22, 2010
Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot
by Barbara Diamond
Clinic as vital to Laguna now as in 1970 —
The Laguna Beach Community Clinic began with a telephone hotline for folks with medical problems and no way to pay for medical care in the hippie-happy Laguna Beach of 1970. By October of that year, volunteers opened a free clinic, fostered by the late Dr. Eugene Atherton . Eugene Atherton and bail bondsman Ron Kaufman and riling some residents who feared the free medical care would draw “undesirables” to town.
Sound familiar?
“I was skeptical about it,” said former Police Chief Neil Purcell, a sergeant at the time. “We had so many flower children and hippies — and the Brotherhood [of Eternal Love] going strong at the time, I just thought how much more are we going to do to induce people to come to town who are looking for freebies.”
However, Purcell said this week that he later came to realize the clinic provided a needed service and had become a first-class medical facility.
The clinic will be celebrating its 40th anniversary of service to the city at the annual Sunset Fiesta, a May 2 fundraiser at the Twin Points estate in North Laguna.
Support is needed now as it was when the clinic first opened its doors and its heart to the community.
The city was experiencing a virtual epidemic of hepatitis in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, due to needle exchanges and the influx of already infected folks, Purcell said. And the clinic addressed those needs.
One of the most valuable and lasting services the clinic offered was the recognition in the early 1980s that a mysterious virus that had cropped up worldwide and was devastating Laguna’s gay community must be contained, if not cured, by education and early treatment....
>Read full article in the Coastline Pilot
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April 2, 2010
The Laguna Beach Independent
By Jennifer Erickson
Survival of the Swiftest
Bending to the Shifting Needs of its Patients
 As the Laguna Beach Community Clinic turns 40 this year, it remains one of the best-kept secrets in town. To be sure, community recognition and the economic downturn are helping to change that. (Photo by Ted Reckas)
A new generation of patients is coming through the doors today: residents who typically had health insurance through their jobs have lost both as the economy faltered. Many turned to the community clinic out of desperation, surprised to find that the disreputable “free” clinic patching up indigents that they anticipated instead provided quality, family health care.
It didn’t hurt the clinic’s visibility that two of its doctors, Tom Bent and Korey Jorgensen, were named citizens of the year for the 2010 Patriot’s Day Parade either.
Originally established in 1970, the LB Free Clinic offered limited services in the early years focused on general health, STDs, pap smears and birth control. Hours were restricted to four nights a week.
Since then, the clinic’s scope of services and hours of operation have broadened. Today, it offers patients “comprehensive medical care across the lifespan with measurable outcomes that meet, or usually exceed, the outcomes in private practice,” according to Bent, the clinic’s medical director and chief operating officer since 2005, who insists that one of the greatest misconceptions about the clinic is the quality of its service....
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March 9, 2010
The Orange County Register
By Claudia Koerner
Laguna Beach clinic among oldest in south county
"Since opening 40 years ago, the mission of the Laguna Beach Community Clinic hasn't changed.
The clinic, then the Laguna Beach Free Clinic, aimed to offer care whether a patient could pay or not. Volunteers began seeing patients several nights a week at an office on Glenneyre Street.
"Then, as now, we had a lot of people who were artists, small business owners who didn't have access to health insurance," said Dr. Tom Bent, medical director at the clinic.
The clinic, the oldest in south Orange County and still one of the only in the area serving low-income, uninsured patients, will celebrate 40 years of caring for the community this year. Since 1970, care and services at the clinic now on Third Street have improved and expanded, though finding money to continue to serve increasing community need remains a priority.
Instead of simply treating a problem and sending patients on their way, the clinic now takes a comprehensive view of healthcare. From prenatal to geriatrics, the clinic staffs full-time family doctors as well as bringing in volunteer specialists to act as what Bent calls a patient-centered medical home...."
> Read full article in the Register
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March 6 , 2010
The Orange County Register
By Claudia Koerner
 Laguna turns out for Patriots Day —
The Laguna Beach Community Clinic was represented again this year in Laguna's annual Patriot's Day Parade. Following behind a convertible carrying Citizens of the Year — our own Dr's. Bent and Jorgensen — board members, clinic staff and two adorable poodles marched through town. They sported white coats and panama hats and waved American flags to supportive cheers and applause from the crowd. Out in front of the group, Director Barbara Hamkalo pushed a wheelchair carrying a heavily bandaged Waldo the bear. Despite the damp weather a great time was had by all.
Photo: Monica Prado and Barbara Hamkalo with Waldo (OC Register photo)
> Read about the Parade in the Orange County Register
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March 4 , 2010
Drs. Korey Jorgensen and Thomas Bent of the Laguna Beach Community Clinic were named "Citizens of the Year" and honored at the annual Patriot's Day Parade on March 6th."
Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot
No Lack of Honorees — Local heroes from all walks of life who serve their community will be cheered Saturday in Patriots Day Parade.
By Barbara Diamond
"The Patriots Day Parade Assn. had no trouble finding worthy individuals to honor at the annual March event: Indeed, the well runs deep in Laguna.
Since 1967, the parade has honored heroes that defended their country in dire times, paid homage to residents who made outstanding contributions to the community and recognized members of the younger generations who followed in their footsteps...
This year’s co-honorees Jorgensen and Bent are bound by their dedication to providing medical care at the Laguna Beach Community Clinic, which contrary to the perception of much of Laguna as a city of fat cats, is desperately needed for the less fortunate."
> Read full article in the Coastline Pilot.
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December 11, 2009
Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot
Clinic medical director honored by organization —
Dr. Tom Bent, medical director and chief operating officer for the Laguna Beach Community Clinic, was named Family Physician of the Year last week by the Orange County chapter of the California Academy of Family Physicians. Bent received an engraved cut crystal bowl by organization members.
Bent was nominated for the award for his work with the underserved and homeless, his leadership at the Community Clinic and his involvement with medical students and residents. Bent is president of the group.
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October 30 , 2009
Laguna Beach Independent
Guest Column — Dr. Pam Lawrence, M.D.
Refuting Twisted Thinking — Response by LBCC volunteer physician to Letter to the Editor:
As a volunteer physician and vice president of the board at the Laguna Beach Community Clinic, I would like to reply to the letter in the Oct. 16 Independent (“Root Cause”), addressing the homeless situation in Laguna.
It was fascinating to me that a reader (Mace Wolf) would hold the clinic responsible, along with two other organizations, as a root cause of homelessness. He writes, “I want to see all three of these organizations zoned out of town or charged appropriate taxes and fees so that these organizations are forced to internally bear the costs of their support for homelessness rather that externalizing them onto the rest of us.” He wants to apply fees and taxes to every donation, hand out, or “client encounter” within these organizations at least to an extent that they are required to “bear the full public cost of the existence of Laguna Beach’s homeless population.”
If this attitude truly reflects the thoughts of more than a handful of Laguna residents, then we in Laguna are in great need of dialogue and education among ourselves.
Speaking on behalf of the Laguna Beach Community Clinic, the perception of this organization is totally in error. It is no longer a “free” clinic. It is supported by grants, government programs (Medicare, mediCal, MSI), philanthropic dollars, fundraisers, and sliding scale patient payments. It serves the under insured and the uninsured. As far as I am aware, it remains the only Orange County clinic that will continue to address a patient’s health problem even if he/she has zero resources to pay, and the clinic has never closed its doors to new patients because of over enrollment and thin funding. Almost all of our patients have an employed family member even though their income may be well below the federal poverty guidelines.
Our fastest growing segment of patients is the middle class person who has always had medical insurance through work and a personal doctor, but who is now unemployed, uninsured because of an inability to afford COBRA payments, and now without a doctor, especially if previously a member of an HMO.
The clinic also serves many other groups without insurance – the small business owner, artists, chefs, kitchen workers, nannies, gardeners, clerks, etc. Serving as a medical home to many of the uninsured and because of an open door to “walk ins,” the LBCC saves the taxpayer thousands of dollars annually by keeping under-funded patients out of the local emergency room and as a referral center for patients without funding sent in follow up by E.R. staff after treatment.
The clinic keeps the working poor population in the work force by treating chronic disease such as high blood pressure and diabetes and achieves results far exceeding the national average regarding successful control.
Laguna Beach residents perhaps do not understand what a valuable resource they have in their town. Attention to community health benefits us all. Diagnosis and timely treatment of a patient’s communicable disease, cancers, diabetes, hypertension, etc., prenatal care, and preventive care affects not only the individual and their family but, indirectly, the entire community.
Homelessness affects many communities. It is estimated that in Orange County, there are 17,000 children living in shelters, cars, parks, motels, or with other families – a 30 percent increase over last year. There is a record number of foreclosures, and unemployment is almost at 10 percent in California.
There have been many nonprofit programs trying to address affordable housing and homelessness issues. Irvine’s Families Forward, for one, is a superb example of a community response, providing apartments for homeless families as well as the counseling required to ensure a successful return to the work place, food to assist the family budget, clothing as needed, school supplies for the children, etc. It would be a fantastic leap to believe that Families Forward somehow fueled the growing size of this unfortunate group.
Housing affordability, failing schools, juvenile crime, gang violence, child and domestic violence are all problems to be solved. To solve these problems will require collaborative and creative approaches among multiple segments of our community.
To say that the Friendship Shelter, the Resource Center, and the Laguna Beach Community Clinic are responsible for the homeless presence in Laguna is twisted thinking. To suggest that these non-profits be taxed or run out of town for trying to address some of the problems of the homeless strikes me as bizarre.
On the contrary, to truly address chronic homelessness, a strategic public policy along with counseling, mental health programs and addiction treatment centers, as well as a unified public health policy, would all contribute immensely to successful outcomes.
In the meantime, we should be proud that there are people who gather the resources they can, where they live, to try to address societal problems.
Instead of pointing fingers of blame, we should be working together to find lasting solutions.
Pamela Lawrence, MD, also known as Pamela Horowitz, is a Laguna Beach resident, LBCC board member and volunteer physician
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June 4, 2009
Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot
By Ashley Breeding
Clinic is troubled by budget — Community Clinic director says if state cuts funding, no new patients will be accepted at Laguna Beach facility.
A proposal to drastically reduce state spending on medical aid for the poor means the Laguna Beach Community Clinic could be closing its doors to new patients.
Dr. Thomas Bent, medical director at the clinic, said new patient admissions will be threatened when the current clinic reserve funds run out. And this is happening when more people need the clinic due to difficult economic times.
“We need additional [aid] from the community to make up for the shortfall by the state,” he said. “Otherwise, our current programs will be threatened and we may not be able to accept any new patients.”
The mission of the clinic since its inception in 1970 is to provide medical care for all individuals in South Orange County, regardless of their ability to pay.
> Read full Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot article |
Orange County AIDS Walk 2007
"I
am proud of the work I do as a physician at the Laguna Beach
Community Clinic, and am pleased to have this recognition.
My work on the HIV Advisory Committee, a part of the local
city government, is educational in nature, and that also
garnered attention.
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