2022 Annual Report
COVID Boosters ARE Available for uninsured patients.
The Bread of Healing Clinic has current COVID vaccines available for uninsured patients. Everyone should have free vaccines available to you through your health insurance or through the Bridge Access program for uninsured people through CVS, Walgreens and the local health departments. We still urge everyone to obtain a COVID-19 booster to protect you, your family, and your neighbors! Getting a vaccine is a gift we can give each other.
Looking for Help!
Our mission has become even more important and we need to expand our team. We have some openings for full and part-time paid positions. We ALWAYS have openings for volunteers:
Spanish Speaking Help
We have a paid translator but could use more translation assistance. We are a free clinic so you don’t need to be a “certified” medical translator. We need help scheduling appointments for patients or calling them with reminders.
Social Work Volunteers
Our Social Workers screen every patient who comes to the clinic for social and economic needs. They also do much care management with our patients – coordinating necessary specialist visits, calling to remind patients, and arranging transportation as needed. We have “projects” that would help us expedite our patient care and free up our paid staff to continue their work with patients.
RN: Volunteer
This is a community nursing position, working in a great clinic with wonderful patients and a welcoming atmosphere. It has a highly flexible schedule of only 4 hours at a time: once per week, month or quarter; you decide! Our patient base is expanding as patients lose coverage they had through the pandemic under Badger Care, so we really need help in this area. The primary responsibility is to maintain patient flow through the clinic: checking blood pressures and blood sugars, following up on labs, drawing labs, rooming patients and handing off to providers. If you aren’t confident in certain skills, no worries! We teach people all the time (nursing students, pharmacy students, medical students, social work students, etc.) so we’re really good at that. Come and join us, or at least, come and talk to us!
Dental: Paid & Volunteer
We have 2-4 hour shifts for dentists, hygienists, dental assistants and a coordinator (not specifically dental trained). All could be paid or volunteer. We offer dental services for our patients, and even have a budget to support some paid positions. However, finding appropriate people for positions has been difficult, as it has been in much of the dental world. We could use a dentist to perform dental exams, determine treatment plans, create bridge and denture molds, and do extractions. Our current paid dental hygienist is booked out 3 months, so having a dental hygienist (even a few hours a month) would help us reduce that wait time. Our dentists need a dental assistant when they work, which could be a paid position or a volunteer willing to learn dental assisting, though this would require some regular volunteering to learn and be effective.
We have specific clinics to accommodate appointments for patients with a need to see a specific specialist. We have a need for physician volunteers in the areas of:
Ophthalmology: Since 30% of our patients have diabetes, we need several hundred retinal screening exams every year for our diabetic patients. We have some resident volunteering from MCW’s ophthalmology program, but that has been inconsistent. We have room for a monthly ophthalmologist volunteer on 3rd Saturdays. We have ophthalmology equipment, and a room reserved.
Endocrinology: Among our patients we have hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, primary and secondary osteoporosis, diabetes, hyerprolactinemia and hypertriglyceridemia – which makes for a really interesting patient base! There is much that primary care physicians can manage in all of this, but we need consultative care!
Podiatry: We have one volunteer who comes to the clinic but his practice has expanded so he is less available. We have a wait-list to see him and could make inroads into that list with a second or third volunteer.
Orthopedic Surgery: No, we don’t do surgery at the clinic, but consultations with patients are so helpful! We have so many musculoskeletal stresses and injuries for people in manual labor jobs that it would be helpful to have a consult available. Joint injections are done at the clinic, and a broader availability would expand patient accessibility. We are able to get imaging studies, and we have active PT referral options.
Free Clinic. Integrative Medicine.
The Bread of Healing Clinic is a free medical clinic designed to serve low-income people who experience barriers to accessing ongoing health care. We are a unique faith-based collaboration that directly addresses a crucial human need. Please click here for clinic locations, hours, and contact information.
Our three clinic locations in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, provide:
free, high-quality medical, dental, vision, and behavioral health care for people with chronic illnesses who do not have access to health insurance.
an environment of education for patients and for volunteers to learn more about the treatment of chronic illnesses in patients who most often experience disparities in care.
opportunities to experience, request, and offer healing for all of us (patient, provider, volunteer).
health care for patients in between health insurance coverages.
We believe that health is:
An issue of faith, for Jesus was continuously engaged in the work of healing.
An issue of social justice, a right that belongs to all people, regardless of ability to pay.
An issue of wholeness in the physical, spiritual, emotional and social wellbeing of individuals.
God calls us to healing in every arena of human life, and we seek to respond to that call in this ministry.
Please click here to learn about our position on medical services for immigrants.
Our Origins...
The Bread of Healing Clinic began as a ministry of Cross Lutheran Church, established with the support of community partners (UW-Madison Medical School, Aurora Health Care, other local churches). It continues now as a separately incorporated organization, holding clinics at three locations: Cross Lutheran Church, Eastbrook Church, and Traveler’s Rest Ministry.
The name Bread of Healing comes from Ecclesiastes 11:1, which invites the reader to: "Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days."
Maya Angelou writes further: "When we cast our bread upon the waters, we can presume that someone downstream, whose face we may never see, will benefit from our action, even as we enjoy the fruits sent to us from a donor upstream."
All of us at the Bread of Healing Clinic are committed to achieving health, not simply eliminating illness. For us, health is an issue of social justice, a right that belongs to all people... not a commodity to be "delivered" on the basis of finances.
We share all that we have in the hope of healing, in the hope of moving all of us (patients and providers and volunteers) toward wholeness. None of us can be in full health without sharing the burdens of other people's illness. When we share those burdens, the pain and illness is no longer paralyzing. All of us are empowered.
Support our cause
We wouldn't be successful without our many volunteers. We invite you to join us!