The Berkeley Free Clinic is a non-profit volunteer-run organization based in Berkeley, California that provides healthcare to those in need without requiring money or insurance. Currently, the Berkeley Free Clinic is moving to a new location where they will continue to serve the Berkeley community.
Located on 2339 Durant Ave, Berkeley, CA, the clinic’s hours are four to eight p.m. on Sundays, six to 10 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, six to nine p.m. on Wednesdays, and 11 a.m. to two p.m. on Saturdays. The Berkeley Free Clinic initially provided 24/7 service when it was established in 1969, but later shortened its hours of service.
“I think the reality of life in the Bay Area is that finding volunteers who are available to staff something around the clock, even just during business hours is challenging,” said Finn Black, a nurse who has been volunteering at the clinic for 10 years. “So we only have the capacity to be open during the days during weekends or weekday evenings.”
The Berkeley Free Clinic provides nine different healthcare services to its patients. These include an outreach team, TB skin tests, local resource navigation and referrals, health insurance and food benefits, peer counseling, STI screenings and treatment, UTI testing and treatment, eyeglass and vision screening, and dental care.
The outreach team of the Berkeley Free Clinic also provides monthly medical outreach on the first Thursday of the month and roving medical outreach on the third Saturday. Services include pop-up flu shot clinics, foot care, wound care, hot meals, hygiene supplies, basic first-aid, rapid testing for HIV, Hepatitis C, and syphilis, and harm reduction. All of the Berkeley Free Clinics services allow drop-in patients except for their dental care service, which is limited in availability and by appointment only.
COVID-19 was a very challenging time for the organization. Due to COVID-19, the Berkeley Free Clinic was forced to decrease the number of provided services and funnel most of its resources into medical outreach programs. During this period, the clinic ended up closing all services in the main building due to the shelter in place order.
“COVID had a massive impact on us. When the shelter in place orders came down in April of 2020 we had this meeting to talk about what we were gonna do,” Black explained, “We don’t have great ventilation because we’re in the basement of a church so we were not sure if we would be able to keep people safe, meaning our volunteers or our clients.”
The clinic was still able to provide outreach services, despite the COVID-19 restrictions. The BFC clinic conducted outreach approximately six days a week during the first months of COVID-19, according to Black. The clinic also distributed hot meals to unhoused people, maintained hand washing stations at encampments, distributed tents, and provided drinking water.
After COVID-19, the clinic also faced challenges reopening due to a low number of returning volunteers. Many volunteers were suffering from burnout or had continued on their medical pathway during the COVID-19 years.
“The thing that ended up being really challenging for (the clinic) is that it took us a long time to organize volunteers to reopen the clinic once it shut down,” Black said, “What’s challenging about an organization like (the Berkeley Free Clinic) is that because we’re training people from scratch to do medical services which requires a pretty high degree of skill, there’s this intense initial training commitment. So then we have a lot of turnover, we lose all that institutional knowledge and if there’s not enough experienced volunteers around to train new people, it’s hard to replace volunteers.”
Currently, the Berkeley Free Clinic has made significant progress in returning to its normal, Pre-COVID-19 operations, although it has not yet fully returned to Pre-COVID-19 standards. The clinic is working on fundraising projects such as its Winter Blitz fundraiser and applying for a Climate and Health Grant Proposal.
“Our current goals for the year include a successful Winter Blitz clinic fundraiser. The only challenges are promotion and public outreach,” said Jeff Hagedorn, a volunteer for the clinic who works in the Information Resource Collective (IRC).
The clinic is also working on moving out of its main building into a new one, located at 830 University Ave.