Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced on Friday that $3 million in federal CARES Act funding will be allocated to the commonwealth’s free medical clinics.

The money will reimburse the more than 50 clinics within the Virginia Association of Free and Charitable Clinics (VAFCC) for coronavirus expenses like personal protective equipment, sanitation measures, telehealth services and new hires. According to a press release from Northam’s office, VAFCC estimates that each of the clinics saw an average loss of $400,000 due to unexpected costs throughout the course of the pandemic.

“Virginia’s free clinics are a vital resource for Virginians who lack health insurance,” says Rufus Phillips, CEO of the Virginia Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, in a statement. “Clinics are filling the increasing need for their services created by the pandemic, but that comes with a cost—at a time when donations are down.”

The clinics, many of which are staffed in part by volunteers, provide medical care, counseling and referral services for low-income and uninsured residents. With unemployment skyrocketing over the past several months, many clinics have had to manage an increase in clientele with a decrease in financial resources.

The Culmore Clinic in Fairfax County saw its clientele increase by 25% during the pandemic, according to Executive Director Anne-Lise Quinn. The non-profit provides chronic illness and mental health treatment along with a range of wrap-around services for low-income residents, primarily those in the county’s Latinx community.

Quinn says Culmore received an initial round of CARES funding from the county in May and managed to sustain many of its donors through the summer. But the pandemic continued to introduce unexpected costs for disinfectant supplies, telehealth services and PPE — a situation she says many of her partner clinics face around the commonwealth.

With need increasing for residents facing dire financial situations, Quinn says the clinic dug into its Breaking Barriers fund — a pool of donations that’s designed to shoulder the burden of transportation and prescriptions.

“We are finding many patients who are very hard-hit by the loss of jobs or the loss of hours of employment,” Quinn says. “They’re facing decisions such as, ‘Do I pay the rent, or do I pay for prescription drugs that will keep me healthy?’ And at Culmore Clinic, we are just not going to let patients suffer from the lack of access to the medical care they need.”

When Fairfax County ramped up its efforts to serve Latinx residents disproportionately impacted by the virus, Culmore Clinic and Neighborhood Health — a network of nonprofit health clinics in Fairfax County — partnered to provide mobile testing twice a week. Quinn says the frequency has now decreased to once a week. She expects that the new CARES funding will allow local clinics to continue to operate through what could be a challenging winter season.

“It is really just going to help some of the clinics that have really been struggling just to break even at the end of the year. There have so many expenses that they had not anticipated in the budget,” Quinn says. “We’re not talking about a for-profit industry where they have them a soft cushion.” 

Last week, Fairfax County reported its highest seven-day average of coronavirus cases since June, and while the numbers dipped in the following days, the seven-day average of cases ticked back up this week. It mirrors the state of the pandemic across the commonwealth, which has seen a steady increase in infections in the month of October.