The idea of a health clinic serving poor and uninsured people that is staffed by volunteers, including retired doctors and nurses, is one of those good ideas that are classic win-win situations. This one appears to be more of a win-win-win situation.

Butler resident Jean Purvis and a group of local residents, including several retired physicians and a retired businessman, deserve community support for their efforts to develop a clinic based on the model for such care created a little more than a decade ago in Hilton Head, S.C.

The Volunteers in Medicine clinic in South Carolina is the model for such health care clinics around the nation, including one near Erie.

The win-win aspect of the volunteer-centered health clinics is clear - and powerful.

In this case, the obvious winners are those people without health insurance, generally the working poor, who will receive basic care for themselves and their families.

Another, less-obvious winner is Butler Memorial Hospital, specifically its overburdened emergency department. As with many other hospitals, non-emergencies and routine treatment of the uninsured strain the hospital's medical staff as well as hospital assets, in terms of physical space and finances. According to Purvis, local hospitals experience a 30 percent to 50 percent drop in emergency room visits once a VIM clinic is up and operating.

Other, not-so-obvious winners are the retired health care professionals, who can use their skills developed over a lifetime to do what they entered the medical field to do in the first place - help people. It also helps these retired men and women maintain healthy human contact and provides them with the powerful psychological rewards that come from helping, giving back, making others' lives better - and in the VIM setting, without the usual hassles of modern medicine and personal financial burden of expensive malpractice insurance. It also probably keeps them sharper mentally and physically.

Dr. Jack McConnell, the founder of VIM, has seen the impact on retired doctors, nurses and dentists, saying, "Volunteers tell me they have never felt better."

One troubling issue in health care today is expensive malpractice insurance. However, in the case of VIM, the legal cap on certain aspects of medical malpractice claims in South Carolina has helped keep clinic costs down. And nationally, a new federal tort claims law provides special coverage for health care professionals who volunteer their services. Other laws have been passed to further protect volunteer medical professionals.

Harrisburg lawmakers should be contacted to see what, if anything, needs to be done to ease the insurance burden on volunteer-based medical clinics in Pennsylvania.

Although the local group using VIM as a model will not have to reinvent the wheel, there are clearly many details to be worked out and lots of work ahead for Purvis' group. The multiple benefits of a volunteer-based health clinic for the working poor and uninsured are so powerful that the community should stand ready to support the local efforts in any way possible - from retired health professionals offering to volunteer, to other people contributing money and the possible donation of free or subsidized space for the clinic.

Once more is known about the proposed VIM health clinic, and certainly when a clinic is up and running, this community will no doubt respond appropriately. The idea makes too much sense for any other response.