A Positive Force

Grace Community Healthcare Ministry is changing Wood County—one patient at a time.

The people of Wood County are an enterprising bunch.  Inspired by tall pines and lakes that stretch for miles, they dream big and work hard.  Civic activists work through local churches and organizations to feed families during the holidays, buy supplies for children going back to school and strive to see that various other needs are met.

One such group is quietly chipping away at one of Wood County’s most serious problems: healthcare.  From the dignified rooms of a charming old house in Mineola, the founders of Grace Community Healthcare Ministry work to provide accessible and affordable medical care to the thousands of people uninsured in our area.  Together with local doctors, nurses, physician assistants and volunteers, they seek to do nothing less than “change the character of our community.” 

That’s exactly what they’re doing – one patient at a time.

The Ministry’s volunteers are driven by some alarming statistics.  Wood County is “medically underserved,” meaning there are too few doctors to serve the needs of the population.  Moreover, citizens suffer from higher-than-average rates of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.  Chronic illnesses like these and diabetes require expensive tests and medications, not to mention frequent visits to doctors’ offices. 

Heading up the effort to solve these problems is Cozette White, a healthcare lawyer who serves as Chief Administrator of Grace Community Healthcare.  We sat down with her in September to learn more about the Ministry’s work.

According to Ms. White, the Ministry is a non-profit, inter-denominational, faith-based 501(c)3 organization.  It opens its doors every Friday to provide free primary care services.  Area medical providers volunteer to examine uninsured and under insured patients of all ages.  The Ministry is growing so fast that these Friday clinics are already at full capacity – and Ms. White is working to add services on Saturday mornings.

In addition to doctor’s visits, the Ministry also provides reduced-cost lab work to patients with chronic illnesses.  And while these services do require patients to pay part of the cost, Ms. White says that the Ministry “never turns away anyone because of cost,” but works instead with drug companies and local donors to help those who can’t afford to pay for the services outright.

During the other four days of the week, social workers help patients get assistance from drug companies to pay for prescription drugs.  Volunteers also schedule patients for the Friday clinics.  Finally, the Ministry works with drug companies to provide illness prevention classes; for example, the Eli Lilly Company recently teamed with Grace Community to provide free classes for people with diabetes.

Patients pay for the Ministry’s services based on a sliding scale that takes into account need, income, and other factors.  The “market rate” costs of the services are computed and presented to the patients..  According to Ms. White, the Ministry “asks these patients to ‘pay’ for the difference between the greatly reduced clinic bill and the market rate by volunteering in the community, which we call ‘Grace Gifts.”

“The IRS values volunteer work at about $17 per hour.  So if we provide someone with lab work for $30 – and it’s valued at $150 – we ask the patient make up the difference by volunteering eight hours in the community.  They can work anywhere they want, and just report back to us what they have done.”

The Ministry’s budget comes from a combination of local donations and institutional grants.  At this point, the beginning budget is about $50,000 per year.  For the Clinic to expand to full time operation it would require about $250,000 per year.  Considering its unique pay by volunteering structure, however, Ms. White estimates that the Ministry would return more than $500,000 in medical and health services to the community each year. 

 “We’re growing as fast as we can,” says Ms. White, “but we need people to know that Grace Community depends on volunteers and local financial support.”   Volunteers “don’t have to be doctors or nurses,” she says; instead, people from all professions are needed.  Local support is critical to receiving grants from national and regional funders.

Grace Community Healthcare Ministry is located at 312 North Pacific Street, in Mineola.  For more information, visit www.gchm.org or call the Ministry’s office at 903-569-0020.