The Doctor is IN —In the photo at left, J.K. Absher discusses his treatment with Dr. Georgia Latham. Absher, a retired carpenter, gets medication help from the clinic and his long-time doctor. In the photo above, the entrance to the clinic is shown. It is located near Sparta Elementary School on North Main Street in Sparta. The clinic offers a sliding scale for those seeking care, including those with little or no insurance coverage.

Clinic offers options to uninsured

Dr. Georgia Latham of the Share Clinic says that the reason the term "safety net clinic" has been used to describe the new Sparta clinic is because in providing medical care to individuals with little, insufficient or no health insurance, it catches those people who "fall through the cracks."

The Share Clinic opened at 393 N. Main St. on Nov. 1, 2003, replacing Latham's previous private practice, which was located in the same spot and named Tarheel Family Medicine.

"There has been an increasing number of people across the state who cannot afford health insurance, or are unemployed, such as those affected by the shutting down of more and more manufacturers in this area over the past several years, and those who don't quality for Medicaid or Medicare," Latham said in a Feb. 13 interview at the Main Street facility. "Medications are the biggest issue for these people, followed by physician visits and then by hospitalizations."

She said that the purpose of the Share Clinic is to provide medical care to those individuals who, for whatever reason, end up without health insurance.

Latham mentioned two things that first inspired her to start up Supporting Healthcare Access Resources For Everyone (SHARE) Ministries, Inc., of which she said the Share Clinic is the first and only entity. One of those two things was a speech by the Rev. Morris Boyd of Sparta's St. Francis of Rome Catholic Church that she heard last summer.

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