Overview:
Teche Action Clinic is Louisiana's first Community Health Center. We opened in 1974. We serve a multi-cultural population who live near the Gulf of Mexico coastline along U.S. Hwy 90, between the Town of Baldwin, and the Town of Galliano. Our FQHC non-profit corporation has 13 sites spread across five parishes: St. Mary, Terrebonne, Assumption, Lafourche and St. John, and four school based clinics.
Collectively, we serve over 50,000 patients on an annual basis and have a $10 million collective annual economic boom to our economies. A 15 member volunteer board of commissioners governs the corporation, under the name Teche Action Clinic, Inc. The board is comprised of retired and active educators, one nurse, three United States Veterans, a member of the media, a Native American, a member of the oil industry, a social worker, and a community volunteer activist. Our services include internal and family medicine, pediatrics, OB/GYN, dental, pediatric dental, and mental health. Additionally, two of our sites offer WIC, (Women, Infants and Children), lab, and pharmacy.
In the Beginning:
The City of Franklin, named after Benjamin Franklin, moved nationally into the health spotlight shortly after President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. This was legislation inked by Johnson, to tackle the national poverty rate, which rose to 19 percent during his presidency. His speech led the U.S. Congress to pass the Economic Opportunity Act, which established the Office of Economic Opportunity, to administer the local application of funds that they earmarked, to target action or a war against poverty. Teche Action Clinic was birthed out of a need to care for migrant sugar cane farm workers and low income families.
Louisiana is second only to Florida in harvesting the most sugar cane in the nation. In our service area, sugar cane harvesting can be traced to a period shortly after the La. Purchase was signed, to work agreements between members of the French Military and the Native American Attakapas Indians. Our beginning started in 1974, out of a rift of the Family Medical Clinic, where Alice Drefchinski, one of the state's first pediatric nurse practitioners, along with a few others, disagreed with how federal funds the clinic had received, should be spent. Drefchinski, an Illinois native, said she came to Franklin because the area was one of the few in the country that was receiving money to care for the poor. "I wanted to help low income people. I was very interested in President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty," she said. Drefchinski said she and her small contingent felt the federal funds awarded to the Family Medical Clinic, should be used to treat the migrant farm workers, their families and the local poor.
However, Sister Anne Catherine Bizalion, a Rural Dominican nun who was also working at the Family Medical Clinic, felt the money should be used to unionize the sugar cane workers, similar to the work Cesar Chavez had done in 1962, by forming the National Farm Worker Association. Drefchinski said the rift escalated to the point that Sister Anne Catherine sought out regional news attention to film herself locking patient medical records up, and padlocking the doors of the Family Medical Clinic, arguing the clinic would not operate until she had her way.
Frustrated, Drefchinski said she wrote a competing federal grant for their group's mission, which was awarded. Drefchinski said this was the beginning of Teche Action Clinic, in rented doctor's offices located across from the Franklin Foundation Hospital."I am from Illinois, and everything there is named after the Mississippi River. So I said let's name ourselves Teche something, and we agreed on Teche Action Clinic. That's how we got started," she said.
Like any new business however, Teche had a rough start. Sister Anne Catherine Bizalion filed a $2.8 million lawsuit against the federal government, accusing the government of acting illegally, arbitrarily, and of being in flagrant violation of its own well-established policy guidelines, when they awarded Drefchinski funds to operate. Also, Drefchinski said most local doctors refused to help out because they saw the clinic as competition, as they were getting paid from people who were on Medicaid, and the doctors were the only people whom the poor and the farmers had known. "When someone was sick, the boss man would put the individual in the car and take them to the doctor, to get all of their medicines needed; but then, it would come out of a man's pay," she said."Sometimes people had worked two, three weeks and did not receive a single dollar to feed their family," Drefchinski said. Eventually, Sister Bizalion lost her suit, but she did not let loose of the padlocks which had remained on the Family Medical Clinic.
Teche Action however, was funded; and in Sept of 1974, a 17 member board was formed to govern the clinic. It was comprised of 11 farm workers, three doctors, one pharmacist and two members of the African American Community. Ironically, the board hired Rosemae Broussard, who formerly had served as administrator of the Family Medical Center, to be the clinic's first chief executive officer. Over the next six years as the clinic grew, its federal funds were threatened twice. During the first strife, Broussard actually mortgaged her own home to keep the clinic open and functioning.
A second threat was in 1982, when the clinic had not received the second half of its grant to operate for June through December of that year. During the difficult periods, some of the clinic's payroll was covered by volunteers, among them, the Jesuit Volunteer Corporation, and the Mennonite Central Committee. The National Health Service Corps who were paying part of the salary of a few physicians, were also working inside the clinic; and that's when Alice Drefchinski, who had taken over as the chief executive officer of the clinic from Broussard, would push for a hire, that would change the course of its history for many years to come. The hire was a new physician who had just graduated from Tulane University Medical Center in New Orleans, and he caught the eye of Drefchinski and other board members. His name was Gary Wiltz.
The Visionary - Dr. Gary Wiltz, M.D.
In fulfillment of his National Health Service Corps obligation, New Orleans Native Dr. Gary Wiltz was invited to join Teche in 1982, under the administration of Drefchinski. Drefchinski appointed him to be the medical director, an appointment that he held for over 20 years.
Later in 2003, Teche Action Board of Directors elected Dr. Wiltz to be the new CEO of Teche Action Clinics. Under Wiltz's guidance, the clinic grew to 13 sites and a mobile unit. Our locations by parish, are: St. Mary: Franklin (Main Campus), West St. Mary/B. Edward Boudreaux (school based clinic) and Morgan City; Assumption Parish: Pierre Part; Terrebonne Parish: Dulac and Houma; Lafourche Parish: Thibodaux and Galliano; and St. John: Edgard, Reserve, and three school based clinics: West St John Elementary (Edgard), East St John High School (LaPlace) and LaPlace Elementary School.
There are plans to locate our mobile unit from Raintree Elementary to Franklin Jr. High School. Raintree will become our 14th site and our fifth school based clinic.
Of Wiltz's many accomplishments: he served as chief of staff at Franklin Foundation Hospital from 1985-87; he was the recipient of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Community Health Leadership Award in 1996 ( 1 of only 10 given nationwide); he served as president of the La. Primary Care Association in 1983; president of the Southwest La. Area Health Education Center in 1994; and chair-elect, chairman and past chairman of the National Association of Community Health Centers. The association, often referred to as NACHC, is the nation's hub for community health center advocacy, networking and continuing education, for more than 11,000 community health centers nationwide. Wiltz himself often advocates for community health centers. He has served as a member of the health care transition teams of La. Governors Mike Foster, Kathleen Blanco and is currently serving as a member of the health team of Gov John Bel Edwards. He also previously served a St. Mary Parish Councilman for two terms.
On a national level he has given testimony before congress on health care, and was a panelist on a health care summit at the White House, under the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama; he discussed health care reform and the benefits of the Affordable Health Care Act. In August of 2018, NACHC honored Wiltz with their 2018 John Gilbert Award, which recognizes individuals who have demonstrated a high level of excellence in the community health care field.
“Working diligently around the clock, we are committed to ensure that the quality of health care that we provide to our patients is second to none. There is not a day, minute, or second that goes by that we are not fighting (either in the exam rooms or board rooms or legislative rooms) for those who have entrusted their lives to us." Wiltz said.
When La. State Rep. Sam Jones, (D), became Mayor of Franklin in the 80s, he and Wiltz became great friends. "There is no better physician, no better humanitarian then Dr. Gary Wiltz," Jones said.In 1991 the two launched a ticket and campaigned for governor and lieutenant governor, statewide.
Wiltz said his interest in politics began when he was a child, after he was able to shake hands with President John F Kennedy, when he visited New Orleans on May 4, 1962."My brother and I were seated on the front row. It was an incredible witness of a giant of a man," Wiltz said.Wiltz has also met Ethel Kennedy, President Barack Obama, and introduced Vice-President Joe Biden at a NACHC convention.
In September of 2018, Wiltz was part of a closed round table discussion on health care in Louisiana with current U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar. To thank Wiltz for his service from 2013 to 2015, NACHC feted him with a twice life size bronze bust of Senator Ted Kennedy, commissioned by sculptor Michael Alfano of Massachusetts.
"The good folks at NACHC knew of my love for the Kennedys especially Ted, who was the champion fighter for health care."He said one of his favorite Kennedy quotes is, "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." The Daughters of Charity Health Services also recently honored Wiltz in March with their 2018 Inspired Cross Award."He has worked tirelessly to provide the highest quality of care to all Louisianians, regardless of their ability to pay, and his commitment is laudable," said Michael G. Griffin, president and CEO of Daughters of Charity Services of New Orleans. Wiltz most recently became President of the Board of Trustees of A.T. Still University of Osteopathic Medicine, in Mesa, Arizona, one of the nation's top colleges for bustling physicians. The school sends interns to Teche Action Clinic each semester, to gain on the job training.
