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Stanton chef makes sure workers’ health is on menu

Photo by Cody Brooks Dr. Dave Ores, left, presents chef Chris Santos with the first Healthy Skillet Award.
Photo by Cody Brooks
Dr. Dave Ores, left, presents chef Chris Santos with the first Healthy Skillet Award.

BY CODY BROOKS  |  The Restaurant Worker Referral Program hosted its inaugural R.W.R.P. award luncheon on Oct. 28 at Amali restaurant, on E. 60th St., presenting celebrity chef Chris Santos the first ever Healthy Skillet Award for his early and ongoing support in providing free healthcare to his uninsured restaurant workers.

Santos, the owner/chef of The Stanton Social, at 99 Stanton St. and Beauty and Essex, at 146 Essex St., has appeared as a judge on Food Network’s “Chopped.” He provides free healthcare for his uninsured employees with the help of R.W.R.P., a nonprofit founded in 2007 by Lower East Side doctor David Ores.

R.W.R.P., which is currently active in New York City and Philadelphia, is a grassroots initiative that works because Ores — a.k.a. Dr. Dave — keeps the whole process lean. R.W.R.P. does not use medical insurance and is not a substitute. Instead, restaurants themselves put money into a healthcare pot, and when workers need it, they simply go to Ores at no cost to them. This allows Ores to forego hunting down insurance claims and the additional cost of hiring employees to keep the subsequent paperwork orderly.

The cost is very low. The minimum base fee is $75 per month for restaurants with under five workers. For eateries with from five to 14 workers, another $75 is added on, and for every 10 additional workers beyond that, another $75 is added. (R.W.R.P.’s Web site notes that this pricing is approximate, depending on the needs of the restaurant).

Ores collects about 20 percent from this monthly fee to help keep himself afloat and, for example, cover group vaccines for the restaurant workers. An important facet of R.W.R.P. is that it is nonprofit, meaning it is tax exempt.

“If we weren’t, it would be one-third of the money,” making the plan unviable, Ores noted.

Ores explained that he created R.W.R.P., in part, because he saw patients that held off seeing him until their medical issues were severe.

“For a decade I was seeing workers that came in too late,” he said. “They were coughing for two months, or their hand got infected up to their elbow. I started getting annoyed.”

He spoke to the restaurant owners and developed what became R.W.R.P. to encourage workers to see him earlier for “a first look.” It is all the more important because these patients work at restaurants.

“Coughing over food, bacterial infections,” Ores said, noting that this model of healthcare helps everyone, including restaurant customers.

According to the group’s Web site, 98 percent of the time, the issue is handled by the R.W.R.P. doctor.

Beyond R.W.R.P., Ores provides healthcare to the poor and uninsured in the East Village and Lower East Side at his office on E. Second St. between Avenues A and B. Ores cannot provide all services — he is a general practitioner who refers patients to hospitals if they need it. But he noted at the award luncheon that he tries to end his patients’ problems during their visit to him, as opposed to at that hospital, so that he does not defeat the purpose of R.W.R.P.