tour of common ground health clinic

Common Ground Health ClinicAlgiers, New Orleans

1400 Teche St. New Orleans, LA

70114

www.cghc.org

Nine days after Katrina hit, a group of street medics arrived and began

knocking on doors and asking people if they needed medical attention.

They had broken through the barricade that surrounded New Orleans

They were not the Red Cross or FEMA,just volunteers who came

to offer first aid.

The volunteers became part of a healthcare movement focused on creating a sustainable model for free community health care…

the Common Ground Health Clinic.

For the first four months, the clinic operated out of donated space at the Masjid Bilal, an Algiers mosque.

Initially, the clinic was open 7 days a week as a 24-hour first aid station, hitting a peak of 150 patients seen in one day in October 2005.

Doctors, nurses, herbalists, body workers, counselors, pharmacists, acupuncturists and physical therapists came from around the world to volunteer with the clinic as the First Aid Station developed into a free-emergency response health care clinic.

In the first month after the levees broke, a few volunteers from the clinic began scouting areas of New Orleans in order to assess healthcare needs on the ground.

They quickly realized that among the many gaps in the public healthcare

infrastructure…

was a source of culturally competent, bilingual healthcare for Latino residents and cleanup

workers.

The Latino Health Outreach Project (LHOP) was formed and began setting up mobile clinics where large numbers

of workers were staying.

Today, LHOP runs a mobile clinic one morning per week.

In January 2006, Common Ground Health Clinic moved to its current location across the street from the mosque.

Clinic started operating four days per week.

In an old corner store in Algiers, a clinic was born….

Clinic hours are staffed by local doctors, nurses, medical students and community members.

All of them are volunteers.

In its first year, the clinic had recorded over 15,000 visits…

and a strong commitment to the Algiers neighborhood was created.

Today, the

clinic serves approximately 200 patients per week and all the provider visits are free of charge.

Services include….

routine primary care,

prescription assistance,

acupuncture, mental health care,

herbal medicine and

laboratory services.

The top three diagnoses seen at the clinic are hypertension, diabetes and stress management— all chronic poverty-related conditions.

After volunteering in the fall of 2005, Ravi Vadlamudi, MD, MPH, became the Medical Director of Common Ground Health Clinic.

The clinic is under Emergency Credentialing.

This allows licensed doctors and nurses from all states to volunteer their services.

Many health care providers volunteering at the clinic often state that their experience reminds them why they went into the field of medicine.

Almost all of the patients have no medical insurance.

Many formerly received their care at Charity Hospital, which still remains unopened.

To date, the clinic has recorded approximately 20,000 patient visits

To date, the clinic has spent approximately $ 200,000

To date, the United States has spent approximately $ 369,000,000,000

to fund the war in Iraq*

*www.costofwar.com

The clinic stands in contrast to the

time crunched, profit-driven, top-down environment that has become the

standard in the health care industry.

It has become an important part of the community, and continues to grow….

Collaborating Organizations

• St. Thomas Community Health Center

• Daughters of Charity• Tulane University

Community Health Clinic at Covenant House

• St. Charles Community Health Center

• Louisiana Public Health Institute

• People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond

• N’R Peace• Craig Cultural Center• Tulane Family and

Community Medicine• Foundation for the Mid

South• Healthcare Information

Management Systems Society

Today…

the clinic

needs your

support

It hopes to increase access to high-quality primary care services, so that New Orleans residents do not have to depend on emergency rooms and hospitals for assistance with chronic diseases.

Continued funding enables the clinic to focus on preventative services and health education programs that stress lifestyle modifications and community engagement with health issues.

Donations can be claimed as a tax deduction

For more information

www.cghc.org (common ground health

clinic.org)

Common Ground Health ClinicAlgiers, New Orleans

1400 Teche St. New Orleans, LA

70114

www.cghc.org

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