Navigating the health care system can be challenging for those with adequate insurance, but for the underinsured or uninsured, it can seem impossible.

Enter Port Ministries Free Health Clinic, which provides primary and urgent care at no charge to people living in and around the Back of the Yards neighborhood each Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m. at 5013 S. Hermitage Ave.

“Whether you are documented or undocumented, uninsured or underinsured, you have a place here to be seen by a doctor who cares and get the prescriptions that you need for medical management,” said David Gonzalez, executive director.

Port Ministries was founded by Franciscan Father Augustin Milon in 1985 in Back of the Yards to serve the needs of the community. As those needs changed, so did the organization’s outreach efforts to people living in neighborhoods including Back of the Yards, Gage Park, Englewood and McKinley Park.

Port Ministries is most known for its bread truck that delivers free lunch bags of food six days a week at various stops in the area.

The clinic has existed for several years, but it wasn’t optimized to best serve the community, Gonzalez said. For example, clinic hours were in the middle of the day during the week, when people are at work.

“There’s a big difference between what we think a community needs compared to what a community actually needs,” he said.

Now the clinic is open on Tuesday evenings, and Port Ministries is working to open on Saturdays from noon to 2 p.m.

In May, the organization hired Dr. Patricia Ramirez — a recent medical school graduate who is applying to residency programs — as the clinic coordinator, which helped breathe new life into the program. Ramirez is bilingual and that makes the clients, many of whom are Latino immigrants, more comfortable, she said.

“Most of our patients are immigrants from Latin America, so they are Spanish speakers, and most of them cannot read,” Ramirez said. “Some of them don’t even know when they were born. They even don’t have information about their families.”

When patients visit the clinic, they are greeted and asked to fill out intake forms. No identification or proof of insurance is required. If they are illiterate, staff members help them complete the paperwork.

Then patients move to one of three rooms where volunteer nurses, medical students and other medical staff take their vitals. Next, they are seen by a doctor.

Every person that is in the waiting room at 8 p.m. will be seen, no matter how long it takes, Ramirez said.

In addition to seeing patients, during those two hours, doctors are making calls to follow up with other patients. They do that outside the clinic as well.

The clinic has a small pharmacy which can provide medicine for common conditions they see, such as diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol. Staff can also write prescriptions to be filled outside the clinic.

About 30 patients can be cared for on any given Tuesday, and during a recent back-to-school clinic, the program registered 50 new patients.

“I try to engage with them in a positive way, because sometimes, since they are immigrants, they don’t trust,” Ramirez said. “They feel wary. They feel scared. They are vulnerable.”

Often patients come in to have their prescriptions filled to hold them over until they can afford to get them refilled again, said Cecilia Vazquez, program coordinator at Port Ministries.

“I think we’re filling a lot of gaps in the healthcare system,” she said. “Even the smallest one, where people can’t see their medical provider and they need an important prescription for their blood pressure or their heart and we are just in between.”

That is especially helpful because it can take a long time to get an appointment with some providers, Vazquez said.

“Just that basic need, we’re always here. Rain or shine, 6 to 8, you come in and you will be seen,” she said.

Much of what the clinic does is medical management, she said.

For example, a neighbor recently had his second heart attack. He is one of the clinic’s regulars, so Vasquez and the doctors kept reaching out to him to remind him that he needs to have his medicine each day and encouraged him to come to the clinic to have his prescription filled.

“We all know our regulars who come in,” Vazquez said. “For some patients we are their primary care.”

They also provide encouragement, she said.

“Everyone is beyond grateful,” Vazquez said. “I just think it’s having someone come in and actually have a conversation with them about what can be done and next steps without rushing them out or looking for payment or stressing them about whether they have insurance or not.”

Having a free clinic gives the community a chance for a better life, Ramirez said.

“It’s important if we’re talking about a chance for them to be healthier, to be able to prolong their lifetime.”

Growing up, her parents and grandparents worked hard for the community, Ramirez said, and that instilled in her a desire to help others.

“People need you, especially immigrants,” she said. “For example, I’m Puerto Rican. I’m a citizen. But, still, in the eyes of Americans, I’m an immigrant.”

The people she serves are “my people,” she said. “When they come in, I see myself in them. They are fighting for a better life.”

When immigrants who don’t have a place like the clinic to go to, they may have to go to an emergency room where staff cannot identify with them or maybe don’t speak their language, and that can be scary, Ramirez said.

“So we’re there to be open doors,” she said. “And that is the point of the clinic in the Back of the Yards.”