Alliance Medical Center will celebrate its 40th anniversary on
June 5, giving founders a chance to trade stories about how the
organization began.
“I’ve always said it was volunteer physicians that started it,
but we had one of the founders say when he got back from the
service, he wanted to do something for his community. It’s like a
childhood memory: you and your siblings would have different
versions,” said Chief Executive Officer Jack Neureuter.
Alliance may have started in St. John’s Catholic Church by local
physicians, as a free clinic for farm workers. And although the
organization’s mission—providing medical care to the underserved—is
a constant in the early stories, even the organization’s birth year
can be the subject of debate.
“He said we started the year before, 1970 and not 1971, but
that’s the difference between founding and incorporating,”
Neureuter added.
Regardless of precisely when or how Alliance Medical Center (or
Clinica Alianza) began, past and present leaders agreed that the
organization has come a long way in the last four decades: from a
tiny understaffed clinic to a professional and comprehensive
medical and dental center.
Narcissa Ortiz, known as Narci, has worked at Alliance since
1980. She remembers well the challenges of those early days.
“I don’t know how we did it, in that cramped building. There was
always the shift—we always had the night clinic and people coming
in at different hours,” Ortiz said. “When I got hired, I was the
only medical assistant. There was the receptionist… We had one WIC
person, one doctor and one physician’s assistant, and that was
it.”
Some years were especially rocky, with funding in jeopardy and
the clinic in danger of closing.
“I can recall a time when we worked for almost a month without
pay because there was no funds,” Ortiz said.
“Through all of this, the health care providers just kept going.
Even when their checks were late,” said Marvin Bowers, who served
on the board twice during those early years.
At the time Ortiz was hired, the clinic occupied a single office
inside the building at 621 Center Street. As neighboring businesses
moved out, she recalled, the clinic expanded to fill the
building—but it quickly outgrew the building itself.
Then, twenty-some years ago, a chance meeting changed the course
of the beleaguered clinic. Marvin Bowers, serving on the Alliance
board of directors for the second time, introduced a member of his
congregation—Max Dunn—to Alliance.
Dunn was a retired executive and recent transplant from Newport
Beach. He began volunteering his time at Alliance, and it soon
became clear that he wasn’t very good at retirement: he ultimately
became the CEO and ran the organization for fifteen years, from
1991 to 2005.
Under Max Dunn’s leadership, the organization fundraised for,
built and moved into the current facility on University Avenue.
“Eventually we had the whole building at 621 Center Street. And
it was still so small. We made it work for so many years. Thank God
for Max, that he had the determination and the heart and the love
for the people… He would not take no for an answer. That man, I’m
telling you, an angel,” Ortiz said.
Dunn’s determination paid off.
“When I went to the groundbreaking of the new building,
Representative Thompson was there and he made the comment, ‘The
reason the money was made available for this wonderful building, is
I had to do something to get Max Dunn to stop calling me,” Bowers
recalled.
The difference between the old and new building, according to
staff, was like night and day.
“It was like we died and went to heaven, in medical terms,”
Ortiz said, laughing.
The new building also allowed Alliance to expand the services
offered to clients.
“The clinic has dental and psychological counseling, in addition
to the basic family medicine, and chiropractic. Even some of my
friends who are medical doctors in private practice said that in
some ways, except for maybe Kaiser, the clinic is the most
comprehensive medical program in northern Sonoma County,” Bowers
said.
Dunn hired Jack Neureuter, who worked under him for five years.
Neureuter became the CEO when Dunn re-retired.
Since Neureuter took the helm, Alliance has opened a second
location on Old Redwood Highway in Windsor, and developed a plan to
move into the future as an all-encompassing “health home.”
“The future of Alliance is supposed to be a patient-centered
health home. And the whole idea is that the patient has a place
where they can get total health care,” Neureuter said.
Neureuter noted that the emphasis will be on personal care; a
patient will be assigned to a “pod” of one or two providers and
nurses, any one of whom he or she would feel comfortable
seeing.
“Everyone would know you, and you would know them… That’s where
we’re heading, that everyone has this home,” Neureuter said.
Whether or not it had a name, that desire to provide a “health
home” to those who need one has driven staff and board members for
the past forty years.
“My bottom line—and it sounds phony, but it’s true—is I’m here
because of the mission, the reason I love this place is because of
the mission, and 90 percent of the staff is here because of the
mission,” Neureuter said.
Ortiz is certainly part of that 90 percent.
“I’m past my retirement age and probably should be retiring. But
you know what? I can’t do that. As long I have breath and can walk,
I’ll be here,” Ortiz said.
Staff Writer Lynda Hopkins can be reached at Ly***@hb*****.com.
