Martin Montes’ blood pressure was so often out of control, he felt too sick to do his job on the production line at a local bakery. He’d gone to a hospital emergency room to get his meds adjusted, but a physician there told him he needed to find his own doctor.

So he Googled “free clinics” and found El Bari Community Health Clinic just off Interstate 10 near De Zavala Road. It took him two hours by bus to get there, but on a recent Sunday he was patiently waiting for his appointment in the clinic’s waiting room.

Open four years, El Bari is, according to FreeClinics.com, the only totally free clinic in the city, providing no-cost medical care to anyone without insurance. There are plenty of other community clinics in town, but they bill based on the patient’s income.

The clinic is unique in another way, too.

It is staffed almost entirely by Muslims (board members Dr. Rudolfo Urby and Dr. James Andry are non-Muslims), all of whom are volunteers. It operates out of a nondescript building owned by the Muslim Children Education and Civic Center next door. El Bari (the name means “the healer” in Arabic) pays the center $1 a year in rent.

More Information El Bari Free Health & Family Fun Fair What: Free medical testing and exams, as well as a moon bounce, food and other family-friendly activities. When, where: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, 5281 Casa Bella, wlbarichc.org

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Because the medical staff are all practicing physicians, the clinic is open only on Fridays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. — although demand is so great, it’s often 1:30 or later before the final patient is seen. The weekend hours also make it easier for their diverse patient population, many of whom are working poor, to seek medical care.

The modest, bustling clinic consists of one large room with a partition separating the waiting area from another space where patient medical histories are taken and, when things back up, a second physician consults with patients. There’s also a single exam room with a door for patient privacy.

While more than half of the clinic’s patients are Muslim, El Bari treats everyone regardless of religion.

There’s the Hispanic man who confesses he came to the clinic because he can’t afford the $40 deductible to see his regular doctor. The young Anglo mother of two who simultaneously talks with the doctor while wrangling her toddler son — who won’t stay strapped in his stroller One. Moment. Longer. And the young Indian man who came by because of a lingering elbow pain and is chided because he has good insurance from a major San Antonio employer.

“We will treat everyone who comes in, even those with insurance,” said Dr. Suhaib Haq, who, along with his wife, Dr. Sarah Samreen, founded the clinic. “But only once.”

The clinic is a nonprofit and receives no government money. It does accept donations and holds fundraisers, including a health and family fun fair Saturday. And Samreen, a family physician and women’s health specialist at University Health System, runs a order-only bakery cuppybakes.com, with all proceeds going to support El Bari.

Another patient in the waiting room, who asked to be identified only as Kathy, came to have her foot and ear looked at. She tripped recently, has been in pain since and was worried she needed an antibiotic.

Like many El Bari patients, the clinic was her only option.

“I was homeless for a while and don’t have insurance,” she said. “My daughter’s in the Navy and I’m living with her now. But she can’t put me on her insurance.”

Both Samreen and Haq say their religious beliefs serve as the foundation for their efforts.

“Apart from my relationship with God, this is the most important thing in my life,” Samreen said. “The way I eat to feed my body, working here feeds my soul.”

As students in Karachi, Pakistan, the couple helped start an organization that provided support for patients discharged from hospital who could not afford the medicine or other medical devices, such as crutches and braces, they needed. Called Help of Patients in Exigency by Students, or HOPES, it has since grown to sponsoring health fairs, community education seminars and other outreach programs.

So when they came to the U.S. to do their residencies, it was only natural that they’d look for ways to provide for those in need.

“I hoped that the ACA would fix everything when it passed,” explained Haq, a family and sleep medicine specialist with University Health System, referring to the Affordable Care Act. “When it didn’t, I knew we had to do something for people who have nowhere else to go.”

He said the clinic’s patients generally fall into several categories — the working poor who don’t get benefits like medical insurance; noncitizens; students; and visitors to San Antonio. While some, like Montes, travel long distances to visit the clinic, most of its patients live around De Zavala and I-10 where, Haq points out, the mean household income is $70,000 a year.

“After expenses, there’s usually very little left over for medical care,” he said. “We’re here to try to prevent ER visits, hospitalizations, strokes, things like that. We’ve even caught several early cancers.”

Even the clinic’s “staff” are all volunteers. Aboozar Ali, 19, is a pre-med student at the University of the Incarnate Word. He’s been volunteering at El Bari for two years, working the check-in desk, answering phones and, when necessary, serving as a liaison between patients and their doctors.

“When I become a doctor I would like to continue volunteering here, to continue giving back to the community,” he said. “The people the doctors treat here generally aren’t valued by society. They grant them significance, and that’s important.”

And to patients like Montes, it’s the care that’s important, not what religion a doctor practices.

“I didn’t know they’d be all Muslims,” he said, after being prescribed a second drug the doctor said would help control his blood pressure. “But that’s OK. They’ve been real nice to me.”

As for Kathy, the doctor determined she had an ear infection and prescribed her an antibiotic. Concerned she may have fractured her foot, he also sent her to a nearby emergency room for an X-ray.