The United Farm Workers clinic in Delano, Calif.: a study of the rural poor.

Data on the utilization of services and morbidity were obtained for 1972 from the Rodrigo Terronez Memorial Clinic in Delano, Calif., a health care facility operated without government funds, which was established to serve the rural poor, specifically farmworkers and their dependents. There were 23,141 patient visits in the study year. The average number of physician visits per patient 3.4; 65 percent of the visits were by appointment, 9 percent were after hours, and 1 percent resulted in hospitalization. Only 0.2 percent constituted true emergencies. Ninety-nine percent of the prescriptions written at the clinic were from a 190-item drug formulary developed by the staff physicians. The data on the clinic are roughly comparable with those from other urban rural comprehensive health centers. The Terronez Clinic, however, differed significantly from most of these other centers in its orientation. It served as an organizing tool for a labor union trying to mobilize agricultural workers in the area so they would act together to improve their living conditions.