A week ago, we celebrated the opening of the new Baptist Operation Outreach Clinic for the homeless inside Catholic Charities of West Tennessee’s (CCWTN) main building. The new clinic will allow us to provide free health care and other services to even more homeless patients.
We already provide more health care to the homeless than any other Memphis-area organization. Now, in addition to a mobile health care clinic that travels several days a week to locations that serve the homeless, our new clinic will be open Tuesday through Thursday and has two exam rooms, a lab, a waiting area and office space.
Patients who receive care at the new clinic will also have access to dental and vision services, as well as immediate access to support services through CCWTN, in addition to the free acute and primary care, disease management support, prevention services and medication that all Baptist Operation Outreach patients receive.
The Baptist Operation Outreach program exemplifies the old adage “Success has many parents.” The Baptist Health Sciences University founded the program in 1997. Seven years later, our system community outreach team transitioned it to a mobile clinic and formed a partnership with Christ Community Health Services. Since then, Baptist Operation Outreach has grown from a staff of four with fewer than 500 patient visits to a staff of 10 with more than 3,000 patient encounters a year.
The Baptist Foundation has provided tremendous support for Baptist Operation Outreach, even providing the funds for the current mobile unit. And a number of you have supported the program by volunteering, making monetary donations and buying clothing and toiletries for patients.
Baptist Operation Outreach shows what we can accomplish by working together for a greater purpose. I had the pleasure of attending the new clinic’s grand opening, and it was gratifying to see so many of our team members and community partners celebrating all we have accomplished and rededicating ourselves to eradicating homelessness. We are blessed to have such a wonderful team committed to such important work.
Photos from the grand opening are below, along with a video about Baptist Operation Outreach. As always, if you have any questions or comments for me, please email me, tweet me @jason_m_little or find me on LinkedIn.
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