Prescription: Bigger health center

EDITOR,

As a family practice physician at the Del Puerto Health Center, I’d like to offer my perspective on the City of Patterson Health Care Expansion Act.

Right now, my colleagues and I treat more than 100 patients each day in a facility that is far too small to meet the health care needs of Patterson.

We need an expanded facility that will allow us to keep up with the demand for basic medical care. As we evolve into a “patient-centered medical home,” we also need space to provide access to specialists. An expanded health center will provide primary care, pediatrics, internal medicine, cardiology, radiology, neurology, orthopedics, minor surgery and urgent care. These are medical services that a town the size of Patterson needs for the health and safety of local residents.

Too often I meet senior citizens, people with disabilities and young working families who need specialty medical care but cannot travel to Modesto or beyond to access these services. An expanded health center will provide convenient access to a variety of medical specialties as well as treadmills, echocardiograms, ultrasounds and mammograms.

The best part about the Health Care Expansion Act is that it provides the expanded health center we need without increasing taxes. The entire cost of moving to the new facility can be paid for out of existing funds, and no taxpayer money is required.

Please study the facts and join your local doctors and nurses in supporting this important initiative.

Dr. Eric Ramos, Del Puerto Health Center

God is his own proof

EDITOR,

Since Scott McKinley (“Viewpoints of an atheist” column, Sept. 24) is a scientist, then he certainly must know that it is philosophically impossible to be an atheist, because to be an atheist you must have infinite knowledge to know absolutely that there is no God. But to have infinite knowledge, you would have to be God yourself. And it’s pretty hard to be God yourself and be an atheist at the same time.

The Bible, in Psalms 14:1, says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”

God has revealed himself through what he has created. The Bible begins with the words, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” I submit to you it takes far more faith to believe in evolution than to believe in a divine creator.

We also know there is a God, because God has put into the hearts of every person a desire to know him. The scripture of Romans 1:18-25 makes it clear that people have put a shroud over the truth, but the basic reality of God is plain.

The fallacy of atheism is shown in the fact that when people declare, “There is no God,” instead of worshipping nothing, they always find something else to worship. Man has a spiritual desire for God, which he will fill either with the true God or with false gods. This is universally observable, whether it be in the wooden idols of primitive societies or the gods of success, money and material things of so-called sophisticated civilizations.

Atheism is not a valid philosophy. It is intellectually bankrupt and demonstrates a willful denial of all that God has revealed. It is the very denial of the world around us and the stars in the heavens.

Diane Saunders, Patterson