LA PINE – When the roads ice over in the winter, 73-year-old Jean Bailery cannot drive to Bend, and she’s worried how she’s going to get one of her friends to the doctor now that Bend Memorial Clinic is closing its La Pine office.

The clinic announced Wednesday that it will close the La Pine branch June 28 citing economic losses.

The announcement came about three months after the clinic laid off seven people and reduced operations about 40 percent.

One week following the Jan. 25 layoffs, the remaining staff of the La Pine branch reorganized and moved all the clinic operations into about half of the building. Bend Memorial planned to sublet the rest of the space.

”We’ve been in La Pine since 1987, and over that whole period of time we haven’t had the benefit of a practice that’s been profitable,” Dr. Richard S. Kebler, CEO of the Bend Memorial Clinic said at the time. ”But over the last three years those losses have really mounted.”

Kebler said the La Pine branch of the clinic has lost about $500,000 a year for the last three years.

THe hope was that the layoffs and cost-cutting measures would reduce the financial losses enough to keep the clinic open.

”We weren’t able to succeed to have it run economically despite cutting operations,” Kebler said.

He declined to comment how the cost-cutting measures had affected the clinic’s bottom line and would not say whether or not the clinic ever came close to breaking even.

He did say that for the first quarter of thir year, patient visits per provider at the clinic wer down 20 percent compared to last year, although he could not provide the actual number of patient visits. He also added that statistics on patient visits can vary greatly from month-to-month and year-to-year.

”We looked at the whole operation in La Pine andjust weren’t able to make a go of it,” he said.

Bonita Johnson, the La Pine clinic’s former office manager, was surprised by the news.

”My gut feeling was that they would find some way to keep it open,” she said.

Losing the clinic is a blow for La Pine, which has grown in recent years and has a high population of seniors and low income residents.

Of the 1,400 households in La Pine, 10 percent consist of a sole person age 65 or older, 2000 census figures show. La Pine is one of the ”oldest” places in Central Oregon, with a median age at nearly 45, the census shows. And at La Pine Middle School, 70 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

Kebler said the Bend Memorial Clinic is looking into other wasys to serve the patients from the La Pine clinic, possibly setting them up with doctors in Bend.

He said he could not comment on whether the clinic was considering providing transportation from La Pine to Bend.

For residents, it feels like a major setback.

Without the clinic, Marilyn Russell will have to drive her 97-year-old mother to and from Bend for medical tests. For Russell, a long-time La Pine resident, it brings back memories of life before the clinic.

”We’d drive to Bend or just take care of the best we could here,” she said. ”This is a huge step back.”

The best bet for the area now might be a proposal from the Tri-county Rural Health Council, a group which has been studying access to health care in the area and looking for possible solutions since October.

”What we’re trying to do is develop a not-for-profit organization that would provide primary health care services to the La Pine community,” said Bill Kopacz, president of the council.

About a year ago the group commissioned a study to lookt at the best possible options for the area.

One was to set up a federally funded health-care center, but the group rejected that solution because of the rigid guidelines and numberous restrictions.

Instead, they hope to set up a clinic that will meet the federal requirements for a Rural Health Clinic.

That designation allows a clinic in a rural area to receive larger reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid than normal.

”it’s a system that’s worked in other rural areas,” said Margaret Kolata who works with the council’s board of directors.

”It’s a very good option for La Pine.”

In the meantime, medics at the La Pine Rural Fire District, the only medical resource left once the clinic closes, are bracing for a flood of patients.

”At night and on the weekends when the clinic is closed, people come here all the time,” said Fire Chief Jim Court.

”They just show up on our doorstep, and usually it’s someone who’s sliced themselves or cut themselves with a chain saw. We are extremely concerned with how this is going to impact our call volume and ability to respond to emergencies.”

Many La Pine residents lack transportation or are single-car families.

With the clinic closed, Court fears his ambulances will be tied up ferrying people to the hospital in Bend.

”The more time we spend out of La Pine on transports, the less we’re here to respond to real emergencies,” he said.

Melissa Bearns can be reached at 541-617-7829 or mbearns@bendbulletin.com.