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Doctors Treat Patients in Need - for Free

Posted 06/30/2009 - 5:31pm by Terry Nagel

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Two Chicago doctors in their 70s are retired, but they’re working harder than ever in encore careers, providing health care for patients who otherwise would receive no medical attention. And they aren’t charging a dime.

Kevin Tibbles, NBC News correspondent, reports that Drs. George Maltezos and Charles Martinez, who have been friends for 60 years, opened the tiny Old Irving Park Community Clinic to treat patients in need. Both grew up in families that couldn’t afford health care. Martinez recalls worrying about how his parents would pay for a football injury in his youth.

Now the boyhood pals provide care for about 400 residents in a working class neighborhood. They talk specialists into providing services for free and persuade drug companies to offer low-cost prescriptions.

See Tibbles' report on the NBC Nightly News.

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