The Good Dr. Bal

Wearing a pencil-thin Adolphe Menjou mustache, impeccably dressed in a dark blue suit and sporting a stickpin in his stylish striped cravat, Dr. Eugene Balthazar, 73, looks like Hollywood's image of a society doctor. But Balthazar's practice is not on Manhattan's Park Avenue or in some well-heeled suburb but in the decaying downtown area of Aurora, an industrial center (pop. 79,000) in northern Illinois. There, for at least 3 1/2 days a week, Balthazar ministers to Aurora's poor--Mexicans, Appalachian whites, Indians and blacks. Indeed, anyone with real or imagined ailments is welcomed at his storefront clinic for medical care-- all free of charge.

For more than 40 years Balthazar had practiced medicine in Aurora. Then in 1972, at the age of 70, he decided to retire. But instead of heading for the golf links of Florida or Arizona, he set up his free clinic. "I felt I had an obligation to the community," explains Balthazar, who had long been known as a doctor who let patients pay whenever and whatever they could. Besides, he says, such service is in the best tradition of medicine. "Oh, yes," he admits, "we have a very mercenary segment that displays the avariciousness and lack of humanitarianism of the times. But for most doctors it's always been a privilege to treat the needy, without trumpets or fanfare."

On a typical day, Balthazar may see as many as 100 patients. Aided only by a nurse, a receptionist and 25 part-time volunteers, he treats almost every conceivable ill--heart disturbances, abscessed ears, broken bones, malnutrition, and once even a case of leprosy.

For this, he accepts no money. He will not even take Medicare or Medicaid payments because, he explains, he hates the paperwork. More important, he says, "We're saving the taxpayers money."

Balthazar figures that he can treat people for an average cost of about $1 per patient. He adds: "It costs the state more than that just to process a claim."

Free Expertise. For the first two years, Balthazar and his wife--who has since died of cancer--spent $30,000 of their own money to keep the clinic going. Now he has reluctantly agreed to a fund drive in Aurora to help meet expenses. Other help has come forward.

Balthazar's rent for the town-owned building is only $1 a year. Fellow physicians and pharmaceutical firms contribute drugs and vitamins. Local specialists often provide free expertise in cases that General Practitioner Balthazar feels he cannot handle alone.

Since the clinic opened, Dr. Bal (as patients call him) has treated more than 10,000 patients. He has a special empathy with the poor. "Look at those pallid faces," he exclaims while examining two sniffling youngsters. Turning to their mother, he asks: "Did I put them on vitamins last time, Mommy? What about iron?" If a youngster becomes ill when the clinic is closed, he asks the parents to bring the child to his house. Though his main emphasis is on the ailing, he does not balk at providing free school physicals and shots for youngsters who cannot afford them. In only two areas does Roman Catholic Balthazar draw the line: he will not dispense birth control pills or perform abortions.

Balthazar's good works have not gone unnoticed. A few months ago, his alma mater, Loyola University School of Medicine, gave him its esteemed Stritch Medal (previous winners include Heart Transplanter Christiaan Barnard and Astronaut-Physician Joseph Kerwin). The citation called him "a beacon for others in his profession and a promise of hope." Also, a film has been made about his storefront clinic by a group at Southern Illinois University.

For Dr. Bal the most satisfying tribute is from his own patients, who eagerly do anything they can to please him --scrubbing floors, washing windows, even baking casseroles for his lunch. In fact, when a woman patient recently sued him for malpractice (because of a scar left by the successful treatment of a facial malignancy), other patients were incensed. "Around here," said one, "suing Dr. Bal is like suing God." Balthazar, who refuses to carry malpractice insurance, easily won his case.

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