ONG BEACH, Miss. - When Clifton Davis hurt his eye recently, he went to a free medical clinic in this hurricane-wrecked community. For Davis, and others with health insurance, getting free care is easier than figuring out if regular doctors are still around.
"I don't even know who's open," said Davis, a 49-year-old landscaper. "Everything got torn up by the storm."
Nearly six months after Katrina, there are still a half dozen free clinics in coastal Mississippi seeing hundreds of patients a day. At the same time, hundreds of doctors whose offices were destroyed are struggling to rebuild their practices.
Some complain that jump-starting their businesses will be tougher as long as clinics are providing free care and free medicine.
"We are very appreciative of what they've done, but it's time to move on," said Dr. Douglas Lanier, who treats kidney diseases at Memorial Hospital in Gulfport.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060216/ap_on_re_us/katrina_free_clinics_1Doctors more interested in making money than serving their patients.
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