Health

Resident opens health clinic in eastern New Orleans

by René | May 26, 2009 at 01:26 pm

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When his 17-month-old daughter fell ill to a severe ear infection one night two months ago, eastern New Orleans resident Gregory Davis faced two unappealing choices: drive her to a hospital downtown or one in Slidell, both far away.

Davis took her downtown and decided he never wanted another eastern New Orleans resident to go through the same thing. So he built a 1,600-square-foot primary health care clinic from scratch at 9890 Lake Forest Blvd. It opens Tuesday.

After his daughter's ailment, Davis gathered $250,000 of the money he has earned from boxing purses to independently acquire and renovate the building, a former laboratory testing facility. He then sought staff medical providers through ads and e-mail and convinced them to move their individual practices to the Champion Medical Center, for Davis' boxing name "True Champ."

"You won't be another Medicaid or insurance card here," Davis said Saturday, minutes before a ribbon-cutting ceremony. "We will care about you here. You won't be made to feel in the way."

Pointing at Methodist's building from outside his clinic on Saturday, Davis said: "There wasn't time to wait for all that. We needed something now."

Pendleton Memorial Methodist Hospital has been closed since Hurricane Katrina.

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duo

at 16:08 on May 26th, 2009

In a world where there is so much to be done, I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do. ~ Dorothea Dix, 1800's human rights advocate on behalf of the indigent mentally ill who was responsible for the first generation of mental hospitals in America - 30 institutions

CONGRATULATIONS TO GREGORY DAVIS for not seeing a problem and merely saying, "They ought to do something about that." Thank God for all the people like Ms. Dix and Mr. Davis who take it upon themselves to become our "they."

HAPPY HEROES DAY, MR. DAVIS!

René

at 08:18 on May 27th, 2009

State Reps. Ann Duplessis and Austin Badon, both New Orleans Democrats, visited Davis before the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

"This young man has taken his own resources and enhanced the entire area's resources," Duplessis said. "It speaks loud to the interest in reinvesting viable businesses" in post-Katrina eastern New Orleans.

Badon said routine and emergency health care is too far away for some in eastern New Orleans. "Affordable, available health care is needed, and I applaud (Davis)" for addressing that need, he said.