The Free Clinic of Meridian is celebrating 10 years of providing healthcare to uninsured residents of East Mississippi and West Alabama as it looks to continue and grow its services to even more people.

Cathy Williamson, who helped found the clinic and currently sits on the board of directors, said the clinic has had support from the community since the beginning, which has allowed it to grow and thrive. The idea for the clinic came after a previous free clinic closed, she said, but the need for its services was still there.

“So several of the providers that had been working in that clinic got together and realized, you know, there are a large group of uninsured adults here, and what they end up doing when they don’t have health insurance is using the emergency room for primary care,” she said. “Or they come in an acute crisis that could have been prevented.”

It took the group several years to get its 501(c)3 nonprofit status, form a board of directors and get the clinic up and running, Williamson said, but the effort paid off in the end. Both Baptist Anderson Regional Medical Center, which was Anderson Regional Medical Center at the time, and Ochsner Rush Health, previously Rush Health, threw their support behind the clinic as well, she said.

“Both hospitals at the time, Anderson and Rush, were very much on board because our goal was to take care that would come to their ER uninsured,” she said. “So it just worked. From the very beginning, people came forward, financial resources came forward.”

A decade later, Williamson said the clinic has far exceeded her expectations of what it could be, and the organization is still growing. A recent addition to the building created capacity to see more patients, and a partnership with EC Healthnet, a family rural medicine residency program, has brought in more doctors, she said. When starting the clinic, there was some uncertainty whether it would be able to sustain itself over time, she said, but those worries are gone.

“You don’t know if something is going to last, flourish, and it has more than flourished,” she said.

Dr. Jennifer Brown, medical director for The Free Clinic of Meridian, said each day at the clinic brings something new, but providers see patients for a range of problems and illnesses. Some patients have chronic illnesses such as hypertension or diabetes, she said, but they also see emergency visits both in-person and through Telehealth.

“Sometimes patients will stop by here on the way to the ER to see if they need to go to the ER or not,” she said.

In 2023, the clinic had a total of 1,344 registered patients and conducted 1,055 patient visits, according to its annual report. Through a survey of its patients, the Free Clinic estimated its services resulted in 1,584 fewer visits to local emergency rooms, saving local hospitals more than $2.5 million in uncompensated care costs.

Both Baptist Anderson and Ochsner Rush continue to support the clinic, Brown said, with representatives from each hospital serving on the board and volunteering at the clinic.

“There’s still a lot of involvement from both groups,” she said.

The Free Clinic of Meridian also works with several of the healthcare training programs in the area, Executive Director Stephanie Woodall said. Students from Meridian Community College’s nursing program receive clinical hours by working at the clinic, which also works with MCC’s  medical assistant program and licensed professional nurse program. The clinic also sees phlebotomy students come to get clinical hours as well, she said.

“They all send their students here to get hours,” she said.

Looking forward, Williamson said the new addition to the clinic has created capacity for more medical providers and more patients, and the clinic hopes to see those in the community who need its services.

For those looking to get involved, the clinic is always looking for volunteers to help with both medical and non-medical tasks. Williamson said the clinic is happy to welcome volunteers for however much time they are able to give.

“They could do four hours a month, they could do weekly, whatever,” she said. “Also, financial support to continue to allow us to provide the services, the medications and the services to our patients.”

Awareness is also a good way to help the clinic, said Brown. Letting people know that the clinic is there and is an available resource can help get people the healthcare they need before major issues develop.

The clinic serves patients from Lauderdale, Clarke, Newton, Kemper, Neshoba and Jasper counties, as well as Sumter and Choctaw counties in Alabama, who are 19-64 years old, are uninsured and whose income is less than 200% of the federal poverty level.

Brown said the patients are out there, and the community can help spread the word that the clinic is there to help.

“Most of the patients that we have, we catch them when they do come in for a hospitalization, and that’s how they find us,” she said. “But we know that there’s hundreds or thousands of people out there that need us who don’t know about us.”

For more information about The Free Clinic of Meridian, its services or for patient applications, visit freeclinicofmeridian.com.