David Tucker is a returning patient of Sheep Inc., a faith-based health care center that provides various health care services to people without insurance.
The former firefighter and EMT first used the service’s Monroeville pop-up location in 2017 during a spell of unemployment when he came down with pneumonia.
Tucker, who works for a small construction company that doesn’t provide health insurance benefits, returned to the Penn Hills location in August after waking up with a swollen knee.
His daughters, 9 and 10, were in the peak of back-to-school season, leading Tucker to be busier than usual.
“All the back-to-school stuff, everything else, it’s a little hard to get personal health insurance,” he said.
Tucker couldn’t tough out his knee situation because he spends all day going up and down ladders for his job.
“Right now, with the economy and cost of health insurance, these clinics are a blessing,” Tucker said.
The health care center opened its doors in Penn Hills in November 2020 after the former YMCA building was bought by the Monroeville Assembly of God in 2019.
“They offered the space to us, and we just had to raise the funds and do the remodeling ourselves,” said Eileen Andrews, director of Sheep Inc. in Penn Hills.
The clinic is connected to The Fold, an outreach location owned by the Monroeville Assembly of God that offers a walking track on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and Hoops for Jesus every Saturday night.
Andrews said most of the furniture in the clinic was donated by Premier Medical Associates in Penn Hills. Each room in the center has a bed for patients.
The clinic survives off monetary and equipment donations as well as grants. The most recent grant the clinic received — from the Highmark Foundation — went toward funding an eye scanner to help people with chronic eye ailments.
“This is a big deal,” Andrews said in regard to the new machine. “This is the top of the line.”
The clinic works with Guerilla Eye Service through the University of Pittsburgh. Over the years, students and workers with the service have hosted pop-up clinics out of the Sheep Inc. center.
Pharmacist volunteers have brought students and retired pharmacists to help the clinic supply medications more efficiently. Clergy are available for patients if they want to talk to people.
“Our mission is to show the love and compassion of Jesus Christ by providing free health care,” Andrews said. “We want to give a space for people to talk. We don’t force patients. They’re not required to come in and talk to the chaplain, but sometimes people just need to talk.”
The clinic also has a free lab for general tests for patients. The lab features a donated echocardiogram machine.
“It has a floppy disk — it’s that old — but we have a volunteer cardiologist who comes in so we can have an EKG and echo that we can do to help,” Andrews said.
She said the clinic does not usually distribute medication, but if patients go to certain pharmacies that partner with the center, they can get $10 off each of their prescriptions.
“The only stuff we give out are diabetic supplies and asthma supplies,” Andrews said. “They’re life-giving, necessary things, and they’re atrociously expensive.”
All of those supplies are donated by people whose relatives have passed and left behind unused medication. Some people donate unused medications if their doctors prescribe them something else.
The clinic is run by volunteers. Andrews is the only full-time employee, and there are four part-time employees in administrative positions.
The Penn Hills location was the only office location for the clinic until Aug. 15, when a second location opened in the Reclamation Community Center in Monroeville.
The two locations are open on Thursday nights, and the Penn Hills location is open on the second and fourth Saturday mornings of the month. The Monroeville location is open on the first and third Saturdays of the month to maximize the opportunity of care for patients.
The Sheep Inc. Health Care Center began as a pop-up clinic at the Monroeville Assembly of God in 2010.
“We had volunteers come on Thursday morning or afternoon and they would pull the clinic out of closets — fold-up beds, bins of supplies for each room, and we would set up an office,” Andrews said. “At the end of the night, the volunteers would have to tear it down and put it back into the closets. We did that for 10 years.”
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Andrews, a Penn Hills resident, has been with the center for the past 10 years. She described the center’s services as what people would go to a primary care physician for. They offer annual checkups, physicals, flu shots, care for acute and chronic conditions and basic testing.
“We pay for these basic labs and basic beds, and our best weapon is follow-up care,” Andrews said.
The location also offers a “free store” — a large bookshelf packed with donated items.
“We get everything from medicines, hygiene products to socks and books,” Andrews said about the shelf.
Andrews said the center offers an opportunity for volunteer nurses, doctors and medical students to bond with the patients who come into the clinic. Forming relationships give patients the confidence to come back to the center for follow-up questions and care, she said.
“A good half of our volunteers are retirees,” Andrews said. “We work with incredible people here.”
There are about 100 volunteers for the organization in Penn Hills. This number includes about 85 care providers such as pharmacists, nurses, students and doctors from the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, board members and fundraising volunteers.
Andrews said the clinic always is looking for more volunteer nurses.
She said between clinic days and appointments for follow-up care, the clinic sees about 110 patients a month. So far, the new Monroeville location serves about 70 people a month.
“Anybody who finds themselves without health insurance can come and get care,” Andrews said.
Andrews said the clinic sees patients of all ages, ranging from college students to people just shy of Medicare age. She said the most common demographic is patients who are working multiple jobs to get by, people who just started a new job whose benefits haven’t kicked in yet and college kids.
“People just find themselves (without insurance),” Andrews said. “It’s not a place they want, and it’s not where we want them to stay. It’s usually just for a time period. We want to help them find the insurance and care that they need.”
Haley Daugherty and Jack Troy are TribLive staff writers. Haley can be reached at hdaugherty@triblive.com. Jack can be reached at jtroy@triblive.com.