Andrew Moore, MD, president of the medical staff at the ASC, started Surgery on Sunday back in 2005, says Laura Ebert, executive director of Surgery on Sunday, a nonprofit organization that provides free surgery to income-eligible individuals and families who do not have health insurance or state assistance. The volunteer doctors, nurses, medical social workers and office staff offer a free surgical clinic once a month at the Lexington Surgery Center, an affiliate of Surgical Care Affiliates (SCA).
Andrew Moore, MD, (right), president of Lexington Surgery Center in Lexington, Kentucky, and his brother Woody Moore operate on a patient.
“Surgery on Sunday uses our facility the third Sunday of the month,” says Joyce Dicken, administrator of Lexington Surgery Center. “We have been the site for Surgery on Sunday since its inception. Surgeons and nurses from all over Kentucky, probably six each of surgeons and anesthesiologists and at least 40 volunteer nurses and clerical staff, come together to do about 20 surgeries a month. They do gall bladder removals, arthroscopies, cancer reconstruction, colonoscopy screening and cataract surgery. All of the volunteers have to
be credentialed. I help with this process and other behind-the-scenes support to ensure everything is in order.”
The patients have to be referred through an outreach program, such as the Salvation Army, Nathaniel United Methodist Mission in Lexington or The Hope Center, also in Lexington, Dicken says. “The requirements are that they have to be uninsured and fall 200 percent or below the poverty level,” Ebert says. “Most of these people are lower middle class, lower income. My office handles the screening procedure.”
The screening itself is a full-time job because the office sees 15–20 new referrals every week and all have to be processed, Ebert says. “We have multiple free clinics across the state and we hook them up with a sliding-scale clinic before the surgery,” she says. “Our volunteer surgeons accept these patients and they accept them for life, uninsured or insured. We have repeat patients more than once every year, and they are all so grateful. We keep so many of them off disability by doing this one surgery.”
SCA has said that it would like to see this program in all of its surgery centers across the country, Ebert says. The company has about 150 ASCs “and they have been very encouraging. I volunteered since the beginning and took the directorship in January 2009. We have served more than 5,100 patients as of today [February 27, 2013]. We have 530 on the waiting list. We have 2.5 employees, the rest are all volunteers. We have more than 400 volunteers. On a surgery day, we have 60–70 volunteers on average.”
Surgery on Sunday is trying to extend its program on to all the local hospitals, Ebert says. “Currently, Saint Joseph Hospital in Lexington is serving the patients once per quarter. The University of Kentucky Hospital—Lexington, Kentucky, is in line, too.”
Surgery on Sunday operates on an annual budget of $200,000 a year, Ebert says. “Lately, we’ve been aver- aging 1,000 patients a year, meaning only $200 applies to each patient. We are a United Way partner, and the Rotary Club of Washington does a huge fundraiser for us. The Good Samaritan Foundation also gives us a grant. We do not accept state or federal funding because it’d take away the autonomy of the program.”
This is a first of its kind program in the country, Ebert says. “On January 20, 2013, Omaha, Nebraska, started its Surgery on Sunday using our template.”
“The Lexington Surgery Center has supported us through our lowest times, making sure we have supplies,” Ebert says. “The OR manager at the surgery center and the environmental specialist have been at every Surgery on Sunday. One of them is the first to enter the building on those Sundays and the last one to leave. They don’t have to be there! They always sponsor us. Joyce has come many times, any time I need her. They are a truly admirable community partner. We are totally indebted and grateful to the surgery center. They make our world possible.”