MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Memphis group is working to make affordable health care available to all workers who need it, even if they don’t have insurance.
There’s a little bit of medical magic hidden away inside Midtown’s Crosstown Concourse: Church Health’s $40 walk-in clinic is part of a 150,000-square-foot clinic in the west wing of the Crosstown Concourse.
Whether your problem is a cold, a broken bone, or even if you’re on the brink of death, they’re here to help.
Dr. Scott Morris is a driving force behind non-profit, faith-based medicine.
“I’m a Methodist, and John Wesley said, ‘The world is my parish,'” Morris said. “I came to Memphis because I read somewhere that it’s the poorest big city in America.”
Morris combined the devotion of his ministry as both a clergyman and a physician.
“I’m a real doctor,” he said. “I play doctor every morning. That’s why I have this white coat on.”
He is committed to ensuring that hardworking Memphians who lack insurance don’t miss out on vital medical care.
“I was in seminary and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and one day I was in the chaplain’s office at the Yale School of Medicine, and there was a little pamphlet on his desk that said, ‘How to Start a Church-Based Health Clinic,’ and I thought, this is it, this is what I want to do.”
And from that little encounter, Church Health was founded in 1987.
Since then, they have helped thousands of people.
“I remember meeting a guy who worked in concrete construction, and he needed a knee replacement,” Morris says. “He had everything he needed: a surgeon, a joint replacement, a hospital, no bills. So I told him I’d take the pain away, and he said to me, ‘Well, then you’re going to have to take time off work. Well, you’re going to take time off work.'”
Dr. Morris says that’s true for the majority of his patients.
“If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. If you don’t get paid, your kids can’t eat. So getting people back to work is actually our number one priority,” he said.
Church Health has 54 exam rooms spread over two floors.
How does it work?
“We have 1,000 doctors who volunteer to help us, some of the best doctors in Memphis, who see Church Health patients at no cost,” Morris said. “We work with hospitals through our charity program so patients end up paying very little or nothing at all, if they qualify for the program.”
They come together to serve the less fortunate.
“What this all tells me is that this is possible in God’s imagination,” Morris said.
► You can help too
WREG will partner with Church Health on July 30th for a Day of Giving.
Now through midnight on July 30, we can provide twice the hope and healing to patients who are sick or injured and have nowhere else to turn. Every donation will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $100,000.
- $18 covers protective equipment per dental appointment (doubling today to cover two dental appointments).
- For $100 you can treat one patient with a broken bone (today for twice that amount you can treat two patients with broken bones).
- For $500, a patient can receive diabetes treatment for six months (now double that to 12 months).
- $1,000 will run the clinic’s lab for one day (today it’s doubled to run for two days).
Visit https://churchhealth.org/givingday/