Delta Health Center, Inc. (DHC) is the first rural Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) established in the United States and first received federal funding in 1965. The 55 year old health center’s main campus is located in the historical community of the town of Mound Bayou, a predominantly African American town in the Yazoo Delta in Northwest Mississippi. Mound Bayou, Mississippi, founded in 1887 by Isaiah T. Montgomery and Benjamin T. Green, former slaves of Joseph E. Davis, brother of Confederate president The success of the Delta Health Center, and Columbia Point Health Centers, respectively led to the establishment of more than 200 health centers in the United States by 1973 and approximately1, 200 by 2010.
Jefferson Davis, is noted as the oldest predominately black community in America. First settled by freed slaves, Mound Bayou continues to hold tremendous historical significance for their descendents and DHC in turn holds tremendous significance as the source of health care and support services for the Mississippi Delta’s most vulnerable residents. DHC was co-founded by Dr. Jack Geiger in 1965, then on the faculty of Tufts University. Originally, Dr. Geiger served as project director and Dr. John Hatch, Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine at Tufts, as director of community health action. Dr. Geiger based his care delivery model upon the Community Oriented Primary Care Model (COPC), First settled by freed slaves, Mound Bayou continues to hold tremendous historical significance for their descendents and DHC in turn holds tremendous significance as the source of health care and support services for the Mississippi Delta’s most vulnerable residents.
a systematic approach to healthcare derived from principles in the disciplines of epidemiology, primary care, preventive medicine, and health promotion. At the time of its establishment, one of Delta Health Center’s primary goals was to show that a new approach to healthcare could be cost-effective. This model employed a multi-pronged approach including the development and implementation of community development initiatives and projects including an agricultural co-op, Transportation Company and, an integrated primary health care system. The integrated primary DHC currently provides care to over half of the population living below poverty in the Mississippi Delta.
health care system consisted of multi-disciplinary teams of physician providers, physician-extenders (nurses), and health educators. The success of the Delta Health Center, and Columbia Point Health Centers, respectively led to the establishment of more than 200 health centers in the United States by 1973 and approximately1, 200 by 2010. Delta Health Center provides primary and preventive health services through three clinic sites: the location in Mound Bayou serves residents in Bolivar County; the Greenville location serves Washington County; and, the Moorhead location serves Sunflower County. Along with Delta State University, Baxter and Bolivar County Medical Center, the Delta Health Center, Inc. is one of the largest employers in the area. DHC currently provides care to over half of the population living below poverty in the Mississippi Delta evolving from a simple center in a church parsonage in 1965 to 3 separate full service locations in 2010.
Timeline of Delta Health Center Achievements, Milestones and Awards:
· Feburary, 1965: Proposal submitted to The Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) for a “Southern Rural” health center
· June 1965: OEO grant awarded to establish, as a research and demonstration project, the nation’s first two health centers, Delta Health Center (DHC) and Columbia Point Health Center (Boston, Mass.)
· December, 1965: Columbia Point Health Center opens in Massachusetts, and search for southern rural site begins.
· June, 1966: Dr. H. Jack Geiger, the first Project Director of Delta Health Center, arrives in Mound Bayou, MS to determine if uncompleted buildings for a planned junior college might be converted to construct a health center.
OEO approves $2.5 million renewal grant for both DHC and Columbia Point.
· September, 1966: John Hatch arrives in Mound Bayou to begin community organization, establish in-service training, and launch public health nursing and midwifery outreach programs
· November, 1967: After almost 3 years of planning, field work and struggling, the Tufts-Delta Health Center (DHC) begins clinical service in a rented 5-room church parsonage at the Church of Christ in Mound Bayou. Operated by the Department of Preventive Medicine of Tufts University School of Medicine, the original staff includes 3 pediatricians, 5 registered nurses, and a social worker, Miss Nadia Gross. The original clinical team of Tufts Medical School physicians was: Leon Kruger, Roy E. Brown, and Christian Hansen.
-Construction continues on a prefabricated 24,000 sq foot health center site on a 20-acre plot one mile west of (then) US Route 61 in Mound Bayou.
· April 1968: DHC creates a farm co-op, supported by a $152,000 grant from OEO’s Emergency Food and Medical Services Program.
After purchasing a tractor and other equipment, the first seeds were planted in April and in October 1 million pounds of vegetables were harvested. The coop fed 800 poor families in the community, more than 4,500 malnourished people
· March 28, 1969: DHC is featured in “LIFE” magazine:
DHC had by then treated, without charge, more than 8,000 people, with both black and white patients
Nursing staff had made more than 10,000 home visits to patients located in the rural areas outside of Mound Bayou
The typical DHC shift was a 16 hour day beginning at 9am
Andrew James, a former county sanitarian in Ohio and the only registered black sanitarian in the state of Mississippi at the time, lead a team of 9 environmental improvement workers who travelled several hundred miles each week conducting their work
Julia Ray, a black home economist from Kansas City, taught the community about home management and hygiene to help prevent illnesses
· 1971: North Bolivar County Health Council, the entity overseeing the development of health and related services in the community, votes to affiliate the DHC with the new medical school at the State University of New York at Stonybrook, to which Dr. Geiger had moved from Tufts, and ownership of the health center and land was transferred to the Health Council. A renewal OEO grant was made to SUNY-Stonybrook.
· 1972: OEO merges the Mound Bayou Community Hospital and Delta Health Center grants into one, under a new board. The grant to the new entity, the MBCH and DHC, Inc. was no longer immune from a veto by the Mississippi governor because it no longer had any university affiliation, and was approved only after considerable struggle.
· 1975: With the demise of the OEO, all federally qualified community health centers in the nation were transferred to the jurisdiction and funding of the federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) and its Bureau of Primary Health Care, which provides a significant share of the DHC’s support to this day.
· February 1982: DHC opened new 32,000 square feet ambulatory care facility
· 1982 Profile of services:
Improved Child Health Program education for children and pregnant women
Health education and outreach services to the community including sex education seminars to schools and other community groups
Home Health services
Mental Health Services – through linkage with Delta Community Mental Health Services of Bolivar County
WIC certification – coordinated with the State Health Department’s Women, Infants and Children Program
After-hours Family Planning Clinic – services were extended to accommodate the portion of the population in need of services but unable to get to the clinic during the regular 8am-5pm hours
Hypertension Screening detection, referral treatment, tracking and follow-up; and, The provision of “free transportation” for patients, many of whom live in outlying areas where accessibility to quality health care is limited.
· 1980s: The Mound Bayou Community Hospital closes due to underutilization as access for the target population is expanded through Medicare and Medicaid funding. The Delta Health Center continued to serve an expanded target area of Bolivar, Sunflower and Washington counties.
· 1988: Under a new board of directors, the DHC recruited Dr. L.C. Dorsey as project director. Dr. Dorsey established DHC satellite centers in Cleveland, MS and Sunflower County, modernized the center’s computer and other internal systems, and greatly increased its cost-effectiveness.
· 1989 Community Activity Highlights: August 19, 1989: DHC hosts the “Just Say No to Teen Pregnancy” back-to-school party. Over 250 teen participants plus 100 pre-teens and 50-60 adults attend
Father’s Day celebration – free hypertension and cholesterol screenings to all males > 18 years old on a Saturday from 9am-4pm for residents of Bolivar, Sunflower and Washington Counties. Men who brought their grandfather, father and a son received free physicals. Refreshments served and prizes awarded to: 1) man bringing the largest number of male relatives for hypertension screening; and, 2) man or woman bringing the largest number of teenage males to find out how to prevent teen pregnancy
· September 1990: DHC sponsored STD booth at 13th annual Mississippi Delta Blues Festival, and distributed approximately 5,000 condoms donated by the state health department. The program was in response to Washington County’s syphilis epidemic. DHC hosted visiting healthcare professional delegation from South Africa, including Walter Loening, Caroline Ntoane and Barbara Robertson.
· November 18 – November 21, 1990: DHC 25 year anniversary celebration. Celebration included an open house, an awards banquet with Dr. Jack Geiger the co-founder of Delta Health Center, as a guest speaker; a parade, and a youth day anniversary program at Greenville Convention Center with Sen. Edward Kennedy as the guest speaker.
· 1992/1993: The Johnson & Johnson Community Health Care Program provides DHC’s Oral Health Awareness Project (O.H.A.P.) for medically underserved school children with a $30,000 award in 1992, and a $20,000 renewal grant in 1993.
· November 1992: DHC receives the 1992 Johnson and Johnson Community Health Care Crystal Award
· 1994: The DHC Oral Health Awareness Program is honored as the Outstanding Community Health Promotion Program, by the Community Health Promotion Program of the Office of the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
· 1996: Dr. L.C. Dorsey is succeeded as Executive Director by Mr. Seymour Mitchell.
· 1997: A Certificate of Achievement is presented to DHC’s “Summer Experience in Rural Health,” a program of the University of Mississippi Medical Center Department of Family Medicine and the Mississippi Primary Care Association, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
· December 1997: A proclamation by the Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives commends Delta Health Center, Inc. on the celebration of its 30th anniversary. The Commendation praises DHC for its services, growth and achievements since its “humble beginnings in a mobile trailer serving Bolivar, Sunflower, Washington and Coahoma counties.”
· Early 1990s: Meharry Consortium Rural Interdisciplinary Training Project (MCRIT), sponsored by the Center on Aging at Meharry Medical School begins.
· ?Date: Seatbelt Safety Project begins.
· Early 2000s: The initiation of the SCRIPT Tobacco Study (Smoking Cessation or Reduction in Pregnancy Trial) provides various cessation alternatives to smoking patients and provides preventive education to convince people to not start smoking.
· 2002: 35th Anniversary Celebration, “Remembering, Restoring, Realigning, and Reinvesting in Quality Health Care” – DHC recognized the following “grassroots heroes”: Dr. H Jack Geiger, Dr. Robert Smith, Dr. Count Dillon Gibson, Jr., Dr. Andrew James, Dr. John Hatch, Dr. L.C. Dorsey, Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, and Dr. Matthew Walker
· 2005: DHC receives the Intensive Capacity Building (ICB) Award – to Support Networks of HIV Care by Enhancing Primary Medical Care (SNHC by EPMC), a program of the CAEAR Foundation/Healthy HIV.
· 2009: Mr. John Fairman appointed as the CEO of Delta Health Center.
· 2010: Globus Relief, a Utah based humanitarian organization awards Delta Health Center Partner status. The collaboration provides DHC with in-kind support through an 80-85% discount on medical supplies.
