By Nicole Erwin
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkno/local-wkno-852040.mp3
Memphis, TN – Clinics in New Orleans, Atlanta, Knoxville and more than 20 other locations across the U.S. are modeling their institutions after the Church Health Center in Memphis. These clinics are doing what has been considered impossible, providing health care without the aid of insurance. Nicole Erwin has the story.
The mission of the Church Health Center is to provide healthcare for people who work low-wage jobs and who don't have health insurance. Dr. Scott Morris is the executive director and founder of the CHC, he says the center cares for more than 60,000 people who work to make our lives better; people, who he says, cook our food, take care of our children and will one day dig our graves.
"To be a regular patient, we are going to be your doctor, a man has to work 30 hours a week, a woman has to work 20 hours a week unless she has children less than six. Our thought on that is that if you are willing to do a job that nobody else will do, you will clean out my latrine and you get sick, then we think you ought to go to the front of the line," Morris said.
Anyone who is uninsured though can come to the health center if they are sick today. For example, if someone has a cold or a broken bone, they can go to the walk-in clinic for a set price of $35. The center has been open since 1987 and has more than 600 volunteer medical professionals. Medical, dental, eye, psychological, social and physical therapy services are provided. Any medications required by the patient are supplied free of charge as well. This is all possible because of fundraising, donations from the community and volunteers. Morris says only one doctor in 20 years refused to contribute.
Geraldine Warren has been visiting the Hope and Healing center with the CHC for ten years. "I had to have a hip replacement and I have been here ever since, although lately I got a little slack on, coming, but I gotta get back on the road," Warren said.
Preventive care is a key focus for the CHC, which is largely met by the Hope and Healing Center, which provides a facility catering to the physical needs, like routine workouts, from treadmills to weight benches to racquetball courts. One in four adults in Shelby County is classified as obese. Memphis diabetes rates are 50 percent higher than the national average, according to a Healthy Memphis Common Table 2007 report. The Hope and Healing Center has an open-door policy so that membership fees are determined on a sliding scale.
Hope and Healing provides childcare while parents do their activities. This group of children happen to all be Hispanic, they see the mic and can't resist...
According to Families USA, 63 percent of Tennessee's Hispanic and Latino population are uninsured.
The Church Health Center has seen a 70 percent increase in patient visits in the last year and half. Doctor Morris says they are seeing individuals come in who have not necessarily lost their job but have had significant cuts in their hours. People once working 40 hours, now are given only 24. If the CHC can provide medical care for thousands of individuals without insurance, couldn't the government do the same on a national scale?
"The government cannot do the work of the church and neither should we ask it to. The way the CHC works is not designed to be replicated by the government. Truthfully, healthcare reform doesn't have a lot to do with us. Healthcare reform up to this point has mostly been about how do you pay for the current system we have. Our own opinion about that is that the current system is broken in terrible ways and I'm not sure I want to pay for what we currently have, there are a lot of things we want to make better."
Morris cites overspending on new technology, the need to reorganize the 25 percent of the Medicare budget spent around the last 6 months of an elderly person's life, and developing research around prevention. A Families USA report claims that under the new legislation considered in Congress that coverage would be added for 23 million people in 2013, the first year of implementation, rising to 37 million in 2019. A projected 680,000 individuals would ultimately gain coverage in Tennessee.
"You know my color? I had a dream and the Lord said, 'Your color is purple.'"
The Church Health Center's color is also purple, and Doctor Morris says whatever reform takes place in health care the need for the Church Health Center will always be present.