It’s hard to believe, now, that there was a time that Hill Country Community Clinic in Round Mountain didn’t exist. But in 1982, it was just a dream that belonged to Lynn Dorroh, the clinic’s current Executive Director. Living on a remote piece of land in eastern Shasta County, Lynn thought about how nice it would be if all the people living in the mountains around her could have a place to go for health care and not have to make the long drive into Redding. For some people, it would be mainly a convenience. For others, it would be a way to save precious time needed for activities that supported them, in addition to cutting sizable gas bills. For others, though—heart attack victims, chain saw injuries, diabetic crises—it could be life-saving.

 

But not only would she need to find the money to build the clinic, she would have to find a physician who was willing to work for free at first, and then for an extremely modest amount of money for some time after. Fortunately, a new friend of hers, a talented and idealistic doctor who was just finishing his residency in Family Practice in Redding, was just the kind of person to share her vision. So Joseph Stenger, M.D., Lynn Dorroh, Joe’s wife Kathleen Hardie, and Kathleen’s brother Richard Hardie (now Chief Financial Officer at the clinic) banded together to make Lynn’s dream a reality. Soon several other friends came onboard with the dream, including Ray Hamby, Bobbi Tryon, R.N. and Terri Orwig.

 

While establishing their nonprofit status—a process that involved a old beater car with bald tires, a portable air pump that plugged into the car’s cigarette lighter, and the use of a grassroots organization’s typewriter in Sacramento—friends and supporters in the mountains began throwing fundraising dinners, hand-making literally thousands of raviolis. A serendipitous old girl’s school connection between Kathleen and a major funder in San Francisco helped the fledging clinic to get their foot in the door, and a site visit that confirmed the commitment of the community and Joe’s willingness to work for free until the clinic got on its feet cinched the seed money they needed.

 

The first clinic was two double-wides jerry-rigged together; when the units were delivered, it became clear that they didn’t fit the way they were supposed to. They overcame that hurdle, however, finishing the interior of the clinic with donated labor and office equipment. In 1985, they opened their doors with three exam rooms, one of which served as the emergency exam room, and five staff. Joe did surgical assists and supervised home births in Redding to provide himself and his young family with an income. The clinic’s first check, arriving four weeks after they began seeing patients, was a reimbursement check from MediCal for $0.23.

 

Finally, a check for $600 arrived, and that seemed to open the pipeline. The clinic grew quickly after that, serving all patients regardless of ability to pay, in an area the size of Rhode Island. The clinic accepted and still accepts, all major insurance plans, MediCal, MediCare, and provides a sliding fee scale for those who can’t afford insurance but don’t qualify for public assistance.

 

In 1991, Joe and Kathleen moved back to Massachusetts, where Joe had family and he was offered a position with the University of Massachusetts’ residency program and clinic. By then, Jay Roitman, D.O., another graduate of the Redding residency program, had come on board as the primary physician and medical director. Two nurse practitioners and an R.N. rounded out the medical staff, which was now about 15 people. 1991 was also the year that Hill Country Clinic became the only dental provider in far northeastern California to offer sliding scale dentistry. Patients started coming from as far away as Susanville, Weaverville, and Cottonwood.

 

In 1992, disaster struck. The Fountain Fire, started at the old water fountain on 299E by an arsonist, blew up quickly in the parched summer countryside made even more flammable by two years of drought. Ashes and embers rained down on the clinic staff as they frantically loaded patients’ charts into their cars before fleeing the fire that nipped at their heels as they drove to the next town, Montgomery Creek. There, they pulled to the side of the road to catch their breath. A friend who left even later than they did brought them the devastating news that the clinic had burned to the ground.

 

When staff was able to return to Round Mountain, they found the ruins of the clinic. All of Round Mountain looked like a moonscape; ash was knee deep in some places. Anywhere it had been heavily forested, “roman candles,” hollow trees that nurture smoldering embers in their roots, occasionally caught fire and hellishly shot flames ten, twenty feet into the sky.

 

But the clinic staff was not about to be deterred. One of the clinic’s nurse practitioners had a spare room and offered it as a temporary place to put all the charts that had been saved. The staff started having meetings there, contacted pharmacies to help patients replace medications that they had lost in the fire, and then-Executive Director Ray Hamby went to work arranging for a temporary office in Redding. Six months later, a new clinic was in place and they were again open for business.

 

One expansion to the clinic was overseen by Ray Hamby in 2003, increasing both medical and dental services.  Hill Country’s reach continued to expand due to their generous array of services and payment options, and because, as I overheard two elderly gentlemen in the clinic’s waiting room say one day, “Here they treat you like a person!” In 2006, the collapse of Shasta County mental health services prompted Hill Country to try to fill in those gaps as best they could.

 

Today, Hill Country Health and Wellness Center employs 55 staff and serves over 3,000 patients. They provide medical, dental, and counseling services to everyone, regardless of ability to pay. They have just completed a beautiful new expansion that has tripled their square footage and increased the number of exam rooms, dental operatories, and counseling offices. They offer a teen program to serve teens who have no access to activities after school in Redding because their bus takes them back to the mountains directly after classes. They have a “great room” that is available for community activities and recently hosted the graduation of Kindergarten students from Montgomery Creek School.

 

The clinic expects to receive gold LEEDS status, the second-highest certification of environmental excellence as defined by the US Green Building Council. Hill Country will produce all of its energy needs from a bank of solar panels and collect 20,000 gallons of rain water in storage tanks to water its landscaping throughout the summer months. Recycled and nontoxic materials were used in the building of the clinic, and the exquisite design by award-winning architect James Theimer of Trilogy Architecture, reflects Hill Country’s belief that health care should not simply address disease, but that it should encourage well-being in every aspect of a person’s life—physical, emotional, mental, social, economic, and environmental. Beauty, personal warmth, and inspiration figure into Hill Country’s healing ministrations as much as wellness check-ups, nutrition education, and the treatment of disease.

 

 

Above: The new dental and counseling lobby at Hill Country.