WESTERLO — As St. Peter’s Hospital is slated to close its Hilltown charity clinic tomorrow, a citizens’ group is cautiously optimistic about acquiring a new doctor.
"We don’t want to promise something to the people if it doesn’t work out," said Debbie Theiss-Mackey, a spokesperson for the Friends of the Perkins Clinic. "But we do have a definite, prospective person at this point, and I think the people will like her."

Mackey would not disclose the doctor’s name. Members of the Friends group met with her on Sunday and worked with her on a business plan, Theiss-Mackey said.

The Perkins Center, named after a revered rural physician, had been run by St. Peter’s Hospital since shortly after Dr. Anna Perkins died in 1993. The building is owned by the Helderberg Medical Building Association, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation that Perkins signed her clinic over to in 1986. Dr. Edwin Windle has worked at the clinic since 1996, during which time it was run by St. Peter’s Hospital as one of its three charity clinics. It was the only doctor’s office in Westerlo or in the nearby towns of Knox and Rensselaerville.

Friends form

The Friends of the Perkins Clinic, a small group of citizens, formed in November after St. Peter’s sent a questionnaire to area residents to gauge the community’s use of the facility.

In late November, St. Peter’s announced it would close the clinic, which specializes in pediatrics and internal medicine.

Six percent of those who responded to a questionnaire said they use the facility, and 80 percent of those surveyed in Berne, East Berne, and Westerlo did not feel the clinic was necessary, according to St. Peter’s. Patient visits had decreased in recent years and the center was losing money, Elmer Streeter, spokesman for the hospital, said earlier. The clinic had been losing $160,000 annually, according to St. Peter’s.

Since St. Peter’s announced it would close the clinic, the citizens’ group has sought a new physician, met with St. Peter’s representatives, and investigated grants and alternate locations, such as a building on Route 408, where Dr. Karle practiced medicine.

On Tuesday, the group held a small meet-and-greet at the town’s Emergency Medical Service building for the doctor to meet residents, patients, and members of the town board and the building association.
"I was around with Dr. Perkins so she reminds me of the same philosophies that the doctor had," Theiss-Mackey said, "and I think that she would be good for our town if we can work it all out."
"She’s a 50-year-old single mom, and, like I say, she’s got the spunk and determination that Dr. Perkins had," Theiss-Mackey said. "We’re excited about it — but cautiously."

Theiss-Mackey is a registered nurse who works with the town’s emergency medical services. She and Gaye McCafferty, a nurse practitioner, have led the Friends group since December.
"The way we got the job is: [People said], ‘You know more about what you’re talking about, about what needs would be medically,’" Theiss-Mackey said. "So, that’s kind of how we got it, and we certainly don’t mind doing it," she said. "Neither one of us even go to Dr. Ed[win Windle] because I had already found a physician before he came. And the same for her. We’re doing this for our town."

The Friends group hopes to have a physician in place by the end of March, Theiss-Mackey said.
"There’s some paperwork that needs to be done in order for the doctor to even bill (patients) and even be able to practice, so that’s what we’re working on now," she said.
"We really have to point out to people that this is not a definite thing. She doesn’t want to make the people feel bad if she can’t come, and, so, that’s really where we’re at, at this point," she said. "It looks promising, but we really don’t know until we get all the nuts and bolts in place if it’s going to fit.
"Anybody who meets her, we’re hoping that they like her," Theiss-Mackey said. "But we’re hoping that everybody’s not devastated if she says, ‘No, financially, I can’t do this.’"
Asked which building — the Perkins Center building or the building on Route 408 the group has researched — is preferred, Theiss-Mackey said, "She likes the Dr. Perkins building. And, the fact that it’s been up and running right up until now, we feel that it’s better suited at the moment."

The Friends group is working diligently, Theiss-Mackey said, adding that, even if a doctor were to start the day St. Peter’s leaves, patients would have to sign their charts out from St. Peter’s Hospital and bring them back to the new doctor.
"So a lot of this is stuff that the lay person doesn’t understand — the political route of how everything has to go," Theiss-Mackey said. "Everybody’s more than welcome to contact any of us for when the meeting dates are.
"It’s whether or not, again," she said, "all the politics can be worked out."

Transition
"The number of patients had been dwindling" since the closure announcement, said Elmer Streeter, a spokesman for St. Peter’s Hospital, yesterday. "We saw four patients yesterday."

St. Peter’s plans to be out of the building by mid-March and will be leaving complete equipment for two exam rooms, tables, and other medical equipment at the clinic, Streeter said. St. Peter’s will paint and clean the building, he said, before handing the keys over to the Helderberg Medical Building Association, Inc., which owns the building.

St. Peter’s has sent letters to patients, informing them about other doctors who are accepting patients as well as instructions about how to have their medical records transferred, Streeter said, and all pediatric patients were referred to St. Peter’s pediatric center in Slingerlands.

Streeter said, in the next few weeks, St. Peter’s will run ads in The Altamont Enterprise and probably The Spotlight newspapers to inform patients who haven’t been to the clinic in the last two years of how they can have their medical records transferred.