Hannah Henderson blog #2

On Wednesday, when I returned to work, my supervisor at the MEMPHIS Plan asked me about the bus activity, because she had gone to the supervisor luncheon thing that had been put on for our supervisors before we even started our fellowships, and the bus activity was one that she thought was really interesting. She wanted to know about my experience with an afternoon riding around Memphis’ public transportation system. I told her about it, and filled her in on what we had reflected about afterwards, and then she and I proceeded to reflect a little bit more, specifically about the people that we reach and the issues that they have with transportation.             

                Because basically what the Church Health Center (and, by proxy, the MEMPHIS Plan), is focused on is providing access to affordable healthcare to the working poor population in Memphis and the surrounding areas, transportation pretty easily plays into this equation as a confounding variable. Andreana, my boss, was explaining to me that part of the real value of the MEMPHIS Plan versus just being assigned to the Church Health Center Clinic or Wellness Center was the wide geographic range that it can serve; for patients on the MEMPHIS Plan, the doctors that donate services range geographically from Northwesternmost TN to even Northern MS (to qualify for the MEMPHIS Plan, you only have to be employed in Tennessee, which means that technically you can live wherever, and so a sizeable number of our customers do actually live in AK or MS.

                However, like we briefly discussed in our reflection session after the activity on Tuesday, the problem is that when you’re sick, the bus is by far not the ideal option, and sometimes people simply are assigned to the Wellness center or the Clinic, and because that is the only place that the patients can access affordable healthcare, that is where they must go, even if it means sitting in the extreme hot and/or cold waiting for the bus, and then on said crowded bus for inordinate amounts of time, all while perhaps juggling numerous children, some of whom may be sick, or even you yourself may be sick. There is a bus stop directly in front of our Clinic on Bellevue, and Andreana says that it is well utilized. She also mentioned the bus stop in front of Crosstown, where the CHC is moving in 18 months, and how necessary that will be (where my group actually waited last week). Lastly, she mentioned that transportation is something that Dr. Scott Morris, Founder of the CHC, is very concerned with and is always working towards making the healthcare more geographically and physically accessible, not just fiscally feasible (alliteration!). I was definitely impressed by the way that the leadership of the CHC and MEMPHIS Plan is already aware of these issues and constantly works to make them better.