Three hundred and sixty-five days a year there are two reasons why the doctors at the Malibu Urgent Care Center (MUCC) are grateful to the residents of Malibu. First, in 2001, if it hadn’t been for the community’s generosity, the clinic would have become another urgent care closure statistic. This is due to the extremely high cost of running this kind of medical facility and the extremely low insurance reimbursements.
Secondly, the MUCC is grateful for a group of residents who, after learning of our imminent closure, banded together to form the Friends of the Malibu Urgent Care Center (FMUCC). Their immediate response of raising money to prevent our impending closure is what saved us. That, combined with obtaining a nonprofit status is how we are able to remain open every day of the year, as well as provide our patients with state-of-the-art equipment.
Some of the medical issues our emergency room doctors have been inundated with recently have been infectious gastroenteritis, requiring IV hydration and medication; complicated sports injuries due to high surf requiring X-rays and suturing; colds, cough and flu; sports injuries, TB and blood testing, burns and rashes, animal bites, dehydration, allergic reactions and a variety of other health issues. One of the unusual incidents was when two separate patients were treated for hawk attacks (only in Malibu).
The clinic also administered a record number of flu vaccines this fall, which includes more free shots than ever before to community teachers and first responders (Sheriff, fire, lifeguard and EMTs).
Our presence in this remote community provides our patients the comfort of knowing that when they are in medical distress, but don’t want to wait many hours to be seen in a far-away medical facility, there’s an enormous advantage to being able to walk in and be seen in a relatively short time by trained emergency room physicians. The only other alternative is driving to Oxnard, Santa Monica, or across the canyons to other communities.
We wish to give our thanks to the Malibu community for all of your support and pledge that as long as we have you and our FMUCC, we will continue providing our service to this wonderful town we all live in. Should you wish to request any additional information, please call (310) 457-1294 or (310) 457-3671.
Drs. Jill Furgurson and David Frankle