Noah Wyle visited a real Pittsburgh clinic before including it in 'The Pitt.' The real cases there are even more dramatic.

Noah Wyle visited a real Pittsburgh clinic before including it in ‘The Pitt.’ The real cases there are even more dramatic.

About a year before "The Pitt" named North Side Christian Health Center on screen, Noah Wyle and show writers joined a conversation with CEO Bethany Blackburn to better understand what happens to uninsured patients in Pittsburgh after a health crisis.

What she described closely mirrors what ended up on screen. As the show's April 16 season finale approaches, the clinic is still seeing the same patients, with the same impossible bills, every day.

What is North Side Christian’s storyline in ‘The Pitt’?

One of the show's ongoing storylines follows a construction worker who walks into a Pittsburgh emergency room with a sore shoulder. He leaves with a diagnosis of diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening complication of diabetes, and a stack of bills he can't pay. One of the show's doctors offers a solution: a referral to North Side Christian Health Center.

The patient is fictional. The clinic is not.

"I told them you can get preventive care, but as soon as you start needing specialty care or something more complex, you're getting into needing to make some more difficult choices," Blackburn recalled to Direct Relief. "We see patients who are pretty nervous entering the healthcare space because they don't know what it's going to cost them."

How close is the show to reality?

Very close: A chef at a local Pittsburgh restaurant had no health insurance through his job. He knew he had diabetes. He couldn't afford the medication to manage it.

He was rushed to an emergency room in diabetic ketoacidosis, the same condition, the same crisis, the same impossible bill.

The show's writers invented their construction worker. This chef was real. After a referral to North Side Christian, he received low-cost medication and a long-term wellness plan. He started walking his dog and lifting weights. His diabetes is now under control.

"It's fictional, but this is really what happens in real life," said Robert McGrogan, the clinic's development director. ‘The Pitt’ has done a great job of highlighting all things Pittsburgh, but to hear North Side Christian specifically called out, it was really validating.”

What other cases come through the clinic?

For Dr. Dallas Malzi, North Side Christian's chief medical officer, the show's storyline felt less like drama than like a Tuesday.

One patient's severely blocked arteries required a triple bypass after a heart attack. Discharged with an expensive new medication regimen on top of existing prescriptions for diabetes and hypertension, he came to North Side Christian, where providers developed a treatment plan and connected him with a charitable pharmacy. He has not returned to the emergency room since.

"Patients truly are in crisis," Dr. Malzi said. "It's a lot more people out there than I think people really know about."

What is North Side Christian Health Center?

Founded in the 1990s by three physicians concerned about the health of Pittsburgh's lower-income residents, North Side Christian cares for about 3,800 patients each year. Seventy percent belong to racial and ethnic groups, 18% live in public housing, and virtually all fall within 200% of the federal poverty line. The clinic never turns patients away when they cannot pay.

What keeps Dr. Malzi coming back?

Many of his patients have spent years trying to avoid a health crisis by the time they walk through his door.

"You're worried, and you're hoping to God that something doesn't happen to you," he said. When they arrive, "there's a heaviness. They don't know where to turn. They don't know if they can trust you."

What he can offer, from low-cost prescriptions and food boxes to legal services and long-term disease management plans, adds up to something his patients have often never encountered before.

"I can be the person who says yes to our patients when so many people can't say yes," he said.

As the finale approaches, the clinic keeps working without fanfare.

"Not a lot of people know who we are," Dr. Malzi said. "We're used to working in a low-resource setting."

For the patients who come through its doors, that low-resource setting is often the difference between a health crisis and a path to stability.

This story was produced by Direct Relief and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.