Logs:Have a Care

Have a Care
Dramatis Personae Polaris, Rasheed	2022-02-09 "I only wish I could do more."
Location <NYC> Common Ground Clinic - Hell'S Kitchen
A dingy waiting room with a line of rickety chairs, a small glass table with a set of permanently out-of-date magazines, a set of plastic holding racks with a number of informational pamphlets about STIs and partner abuse. This place is not, to be sure, the most cheerful on earth, but for many of its clientele it is the best they have. The Common Ground Clinic's staff provides free and low-cost medical care on a sliding scale to many of Manhattan's poorest residents, without checking for insurance, immigration status or many other things that bar entry for many of them to traditional medical care. There is counselling available, too, and once a week social workers to help people find resources for getting on their feet. The wait times are long, but the volunteer staff here is dedicated (if always overworked.) Polaris has been fidgeting with a handful of ball bearings (it is unclear and probably irrelevant whether they are magnetic) since she entered the small utilitarian office. She's otherwise still, though, shoulders tight and legs crossed even tighter. Her work clothes still smell richly of coffee: a black t-shirt with two horseshoe magnets overlapping to form a cartoon heart with a plum-and-lavender stripe long sleeve shirt underneath, black jeans and black boots heavy with steel hardware, her also steel-encrusted motorcycle jacket draped over the back of the chair. "Thank you for seeing me on short notice," she's saying. "I feel bad coming here like, I have insurance. I have a PCP, even. Just, Mendel is kinduva mess." Rasheed is seated catacorner to Polaris at his computer, his work attire a white button-down and brown slacks, the hunch of his frame giving his clothes an ill-fitting look. "Mendel has been considerably swamped. They simply aren't large enough to --" His brows knit together, and this sentence trails off into nothingness as he taps at his keyboard. "Feel like your whole community's had a time of it lately, anyway. Glad if I can make at least one thing less." He lifts a hand, rubbing it against a beard considerably more shot through with grey than it has been in the past. "Trying." "I don't really feel like we've ever had a great time of it, honestly?" Polaris shrugs, her shoulders not quite relaxing all the way back down after. "But. Yeah, lately's been a lot, which probably doesn't help Mendel's behavioral health wait list. I know they're trying, but it's a month or two minimum to get just a regular non-specialist appointment and my doctor never answers messages." The ball bearings arrange themselves into a pyramid in the palm of her hand. "It's not even like I need anything complicated, I just some prescriptions. And I know you're not that kind of brain doctor, but if you have any ideas where I can find a psychiatrist who accepts both insurance and new patients, that would be really helpful." For a moment Rasheed just blinks over at Polaris, before his head dips in a small assent. "No. I suppose not," he says a touch awkwardly. "The wait list here right now is --" His frown deepens. "Not shorter. But I do have --" Here he's trailed off, again, lost once more in his computer. "Ah! Yes. Ah -- a colleague at Mount Sinai who has an opening, now. She's quite competent. And --" This time his pause-clickclickclick is briefer, "does take your insurance. If she doesn't work out I have a few other leads. The, ah, pandemic has stretched behavioral health wait lists -- longer than usual." His hand rubs his chin again. "Everything longer than usual, really." Polaris perks up slightly at his announcement, though there is something guarded in the relief her face wants to show. "Thank you, that would be amazing. Like, I had a psych, but he was a bigot and a creeper so I fired him. Which in retrospect was probably a bad decision but. Mania." Her shrug is a little less jerky this time. "I think it's been hell on medical professionals even aside from the increased need, though that's obviously also a whole thing. This country's healthcare system was already fuuuu--" She doesn't actually bother replacing the censored profanity with anything. "Well. You know. Probably a lot better than I do." She closes her hand around the steel beads so tightly they click against each other in her fist. "Like, the new focus on public health should bring better support and funding for community health initiatives--I don't mean just for freaks, I mean like here. But it's not like this country just magically started caring about poor people, X-gene or no X-gene." Rasheed's brows lift, though only briefly. His mouth twitches on some abortive statement; when he does speak it's only a slightly wry: "What new focus on public health?" His chair swivels slightly toward Polaris. His eyes track to Polaris's hands at the click of the beads in a reflexive tic. "I'm sending a referral -- if they aren't in touch with you by the end of the week about an appointment, let me know?" Polaris groans quietly. "Yeah, I guess that's...pretty theoretical. I mean, Leo is the single most effective pandemic control program we have, but the CDC won't acknowledge it, Prometheus is gunning for him, and rest of the government is happy to help." Her shoulders pull in tighter. "Frak. Sorry, that's...probably infuriating to you, too! I'm just--" She deliberately relaxes with a slow breath, letting the ball bearing pool in her palm, and manages a weak but grateful smile. "I'll let you know, thank you. And thank God we have doctors like you." Rasheed's eyes lift back from Polaris's hand abruptly; his lips have pressed thin as his head inclines in assent. "Yes, the situation with Mr. Concepcion has been. Extremely vexing." His chair turns back toward his computer as Polaris relaxes. "I only wish I could do more."