St. George » The Doctors' Volunteer Clinic in St. George is so busy that some mental health therapy takes place in a storage room with sheets hanging on the walls.

"We've seen the number of patients go up 30 percent this year," said director DeeAnne Staheli. "One of our mental health [doctors] will see up to 79 patients a day. A lot of the increase is from people who have lost their jobs. What we are seeing now, we've never seen before."

She said the clinic, 1036 E. Riverside Drive, offers free general health and mental health services five days a week from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Volunteer dentists work at the clinic three days a week.

All the health care services are provided by 15 doctors, most of whom are retired, and a volunteer staff. Staheli is one of two workers paid a salary. The clinic operates on just $150,000 a year, all from private donations, and last year treated 12,000 patients.

None of the patients have insurance or qualify for Medicare, and most live below the poverty line.

"We take care of people who have no place to go, and everyone has a right to medical care," said Staheli. She said the clinic doesn't accept government funding to keep administrative costs and red tape to a minimum.

The clinic was launched largely through the efforts of Paul Doxey, a St. George doctor who learned in 1998 that the number of uninsured people in Washington County was twice the state average. At that time, Doxey teamed up with the Care and Share shelter, which offers meals and beds to the homeless.

After three years, the number of patients had grown so much the clinic needed its own space.

"Most the people we saw at that time were homeless," said Doxey. "They didn't have insurance and when it comes to food or health care, most chose food."

Doxey said he was inspired by an Ogden doctor who started a free clinic in the 1970s to care for that city's homeless and indigent.

The St. George clinic moved after the Southern Utah Homebuilders Association built the current clinic with donated materials and labor. The land was also donated.

Chris Southwick, operations officer with Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George, said the clinic offers a important service in the community.

While the hospital doesn't turn patients away, emergency room visits are not always cost effective and may lack the continuity of care the clinic can offer.

He said the hospital offers to help with laboratory work and screenings for patients referred from the clinic and charges them on a sliding scale.

"They do a marvelous job," Southwick said.

Dixie Regional spokeswoman Terri Draper said the Intermountain Health Care Foundation contributed $40,000 to the clinic this year.

"It's a great partnership, and we appreciate what they do," said Draper. "[Staheli] has a great passion for what she does and is a force for good in the community."

The clinic plans to add a mental health wing with the help of $50,000 from the Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation. But another $50,000 is needed.

Stephen Seager, a psychiatrist and director of behavioral medicine at Dixie Regional Medical Center and a clinic volunteer, said some of his patients are young people struggling with the fallout from a bad economy.

"Almost everyone I see has the same story that starts, 'I got laid off,' " said Seager, whose father Floyd started the Ogden clinic. "Poverty is a growth industry."

His patients are suffering from problems ranging from depression to bipolar disorder to drug abuse.

People who need surgery are referred to doctors who frequently perform the operations without pay or who make financial arrangements with the patient.

Manny Aguilar, who volunteers as a Spanish interpreter at the clinic, said many Latinos in Washington County rely its services because they have no insurance or are afraid to go to the hospital.

"If the clinic were to close its doors, they would get no attention at all," said Aguilar. "It is their best friend."

mhavnes@sltrib.com