Doctors To Establish Free Clinic

A group of Harvard and M.I.T. physicians and psychiatrists yesterday announced plans to establish a free medical clinic to serve poor people and alienated young people in the Cambridge area.

Dr. Joseph H. Brenner, a staff psychiatrist at M.I.T. and the project's organizer, said yesterday he hoped it would be in operation by January. It will dispense both medical and psychiatric out-patient treatment.

Foundation Grant

The clinic will initially operate five nights and one afternoon per week with a staff of volunteer doctors. Salaries for a nurse and an aide, as well as rental and renovation costs for an office, will be paid by a $69,000 grant from the Field Foundation of New York City.

Brenner said the grant would pay the entire operating costs of the clinic for two years. He indicated that it might also provide limited amounts of free prescription medicine for patients.

He stressed that no proof of financial need will be required to determine eligibility for the clinic. "The assumption will be that they are not able to use the available medical services, public or private, but their reasons for this will not be questioned. If they think they are eligible, they are."

Brenner indicated that he hopes to work closely with the Cambridge City Hospital, using their facilities to supplement the clinics when extended treatment is needed. "They need us and we need them," he added.

Dr. M. Robert Coles '50, research psychiatrist at the University Health Service, said the clinic might be useful to Harvard and Radcliffe students who, for one reason or another, are dissatisfied with the UHS. Coles will serve as one of the clinic's physicians.

The project, Brenner said, will be aimed primarily at two groups of people:

* Young adults and adolescents who have dropped out of society or are living marginally on the fringe of society,

* More permanent members of the community who, because of their low income levels, do not receive the best medical care.

According to Brenner, poor people who attempt to use public city hospitals are often put off by long waits for service, cursory treatment, and financial tests.

Reaching the poor with medical care, Coles said, "is not just a matter of setting up free services. You need a kind of commitment before you can break down the barriers people have built up to the medical profession."

Brenner said his goal was not to resocialize hippies. "That's a middle class judgment," he said. "We will in no way attempt to get people to return to something they feel they have a need to escape. There are many troubled people who may be in need of medical help. We want to meet whatever medical needs they have."

He is currently looking for an office for the clinic between Harvard and Central Squares.