NORWALK — A recent study by the Orange County Health Agency found that about 44.6 percent of the people who go to hospital emergency rooms did not require emergency treatment, but went because they are on Medi-Cal or have no health insurance and had no other place to go.

That results in crowded emergency rooms where patients with serious problems must wait. Those with health insurance end up with higher premiums to pay for the cost of free treatments at emergency rooms.

The John Wesley Community Health Institute, a private, nonprofit medical group, is among those seeking to reduce the problem by offering primary health care to low-income patients with no insurance or who are on Medi-Cal, the state-funded health program.

“We are here to help care for people before they get sick enough to need to go to a hospital,” said Vanessa Landin, marketing coordinator for the Los Angeles-based JWCH, with clinics in South Los Angeles, East Los Angeles, El Monte, Lynwood, Bell Gardens, Norwalk and three on Skid Row in downtown.

“No one is turned away for lack of ability to pay,” said Landin, adding that the clinics accept patients with health insurance, Medi-Cal and those who have no insurance. “We have a sliding scale based on income for those who can pay something.”

Landin spoke Feb. 25 at the JWCH clinic in Norwalk, where patients crowded into the waiting room and where the parking lot is usually filled.

Known as the Norwalk Regional Health Center, the JWCH clinic took over in 2006 after the free clinic operated by Los Angeles County closed because of budget reductions.

“We started with only a few caseload folders and now we have more than 6,000,” Landin said. “About 95 percent of the people here have no health insurance. We are known in the trade as a health safety net caregiver.”

Regular hours of operation at the Norwalk site are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday with hours extended to 7 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Weekend hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. the first and third Saturday.

Norwalk offers a medical doctor and a physician’s assistant, with overlapping shifts. The total staff numbers 15 and includes a licensed vocational nurse and four nursing assistants.

Chief of nurses for the agency, Jeny Argame, a registered nurse, is based in Norwalk and oversees some 20 nurses at the JWCH clinics.

Most of the staff is bilingual, Landin said.

Dr. Dave Luna, a pediatrician, said he and the physician’s assistant see an average of 35 people a day each.

Staff is trained to care for minor ailments. For more serious situations, the patients are sent to hospitals.

In cases where there is not an immediate emergency but care is needed for an ongoing problem such as heart disease or diabetes, a referral coordinator on staff helps the patients find the nearest specialist for his or her ailments.

However, non-emergency referrals might take up to five weeks for an appointment with a specialist, said Vanessa Esquer, the referral coordinator.

She most often sends patients to the still operating clinic at the former Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital in Willowbrook or to UCLA-Harbor Medical Center, both operated by the county.

Esquer is also available to explain the eligibility requirements for certain programs, such as Medi-Cal and Healthy Child.

A laboratory for minor blood tests and a medication dispensary also are available at the Norwalk clinic.

Services at the clinic include primary care, pediatrics and pre-natal care.

Other programs include family planning, teen pregnancy prevention, homeless health care (offered mostly downtown), recuperative care and housing (in a 75-bed facility in Los Angeles) and HIV/AIDS education and senior care.

Youth services are also a key program. Jenny Tang is the youth services coordinator in Norwalk and travels to various continuation schools in the area to conduct health workshops on such topics as sexually transmitted diseases and other teen issues.

Tang noted that the agency will often hire teenagers as “peer educators,” to work with other teens on their problems and provide health information.

“We are supported by many local nonprofit agencies such as the Los Angeles Centers for Drug and Alcohol Abuse (LA CADA, in Santa Fe Springs) and Southern California Rehabilitation Services (in Downey) as well as civic groups such as the Norwalk Community Coordinating Council,” Landin said.

“We try to reach out to the community. We will provide services at the Norwalk Health Fair in April and in March the institute has pledged to provide 1,800 screenings for blood pressure and glucose in Los Angeles,” Landin added.

The institute was started in 1960 by a group of concerned Los Angeles doctors on staff at John Wesley County Hospital. The hospital was closed and demolished in 1979 and the name of the agency was changed to the JWCH.

Its mission is to “improve the health status and well-being of underserved segments of the population of Los Angeles County through the direct provision or coordination of health care, heath education services and research,” Landin said.