It’s the middle of cold and flu season in Kentucky, and the waiting room at Mission Frankfort Clinic brims with patients. Members of a welcoming medical staff are on hand to take care of their needs, which are met without expense to those seeking care.
“We provide the place, schedule the patients and the volunteers do the rest,” says Dana Nickles, administrative clinic coordinator.
Housed in an expansive area of First Baptist Church on Frankfort’s Saint Clair Street, the primary care facility opens four times a month and serves 700-800 patients per year. “That number is down from our first years. Before ACA, we averaged 1,100 to 1,200 patients each year,” says church Minister of Missions Dr. Keith Felton, referring to the Affordable Care Act, instituted in 2010 during President Barack Obama’s administration that enabled many to get health care who previously had not been able to afford it.
The clinic was founded in 2002 to meet the needs of those requiring dental care in Franklin County and the surrounding area. It expanded to include medical care and pharmacy services in early 2004. Dental care is provided twice monthly and includes cleanings and checkups as well as fillings, extractions, root canals and other procedures. Staffed by Dr. Clark Cash, Dr. Nathan Nitz and Dr. Melissa Holland, along with dental assistants and hygienists, the clinic sees “plenty of need” in the community, according to Cash. “We would like to do it more than twice a month,” he says. “Mary Ann Burch [a dental hygienist volunteer] has been instrumental in connecting with University of Kentucky dental students, who will be coming in the future” to help with the demand.
Aside from seasonal viruses and colds, pre-existing conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol are treated by Dr. Kimberly Bell, who also serves as the clinic’s medical director, and Drs. Ann Pollock, Anthony Barnes and Steven Crum, along with a team of nurses, interns and assistants. “We have one EMT [emergency medical technician] who comes, and we have around six nurses in a regular rotation,” Nickles says. “And then, we have some who have their CNA [certified nursing assistant] license who help us sometimes with triage as well. The nurses do the lab work, and we have nurse practitioners—that’s another key component of our service delivery.
“We don’t have any physician assistants at this time, but we’d love to have some. It would allow us to see more patients. We’re always trying to recruit new people.”
For the interns, the experience is mutually beneficial. “Part of our mission is to get interns in to get their feet wet,” Felton says.
Patients occasionally are referred to specialists for further care. Among those who see referrals free of charge in their office are ophthalmologist Dr. Robert Kinker and Dr. Raul Heredia, a cardiologist.
“We have administrative volunteers as well,” Nickles says. “We have a schedule of folks who come once a month, and then we have a couple of volunteers from the church who do administrative things during the week for us. Plus, we have translators, which is really important for us.”
Patients learn about the clinic primarily from the health department, as well as word of mouth. Additionally, homeless shelters refer those in need of health care to the clinic.
Along with free medical care, the clinic’s pharmacy volunteers, headed by registered pharmacist Amy Rogers, dispense prescribed medications at no cost. The medications are provided through the Patient Assistance Program, in which patients enroll at the time of their visit. Through this program, pharmaceutical companies provide meds to patients who cannot afford them.
A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Mission Frankfort Clinic obtains operating funds from private grants, hospitals, local government and health care corporations such as Delta Dental of Kentucky insurance company. Aside from the clinic space, First Baptist Church also contributes monetarily.
All medical, dental and pharmaceutical professionals staffing the clinic do so without compensation. “Most of them have full-time jobs and take the time to volunteer their services,” Felton says. “It all happens because people with expertise devote their time.”
Honduras mission trip smiles
South of the Border Mission
Honduras is a small Central American republic with rugged mountains and scenic white beaches. It’s also a country of abject poverty. “It’s poor in a different definition than you imagine,” Burch says. “Unless you’ve been there and seen what they survive on … It’s hard to describe.”
Along with several other Mission Frankfort Clinic volunteers, Burch regularly embarks on a yearly health-care trip to the country. Begun around 16 years ago by obstetrician/gynecologist Dr. Arba Kenner, internist Dr. Roger Strunk and architect Jim Burris, the mission is sponsored by Frankfort’s First United Methodist Church.
Burch joined the Honduras group in its second year. Dr. John Paul Broderson, an ophthalmologist, and his wife, Marcey, already had joined the mission team. “Marcey and I have been friends for a long time,” Burch recalls. “She said, ‘We need a dentist. Would you go?’ And I said, ‘Well, maybe when I retire, and she said, ‘No, we really need somebody now.’ ”
Burch thought about it and talked it over with her husband, Gene Burch, a dentist who has since retired. She asked Gene if he would go, but because most of the treatments in Honduras involve extractions, Gene, with chronic tennis elbow, wasn’t a good fit for that type of work, though he was happy to help with supplies and other needs.
Mary Ann then contacted Dr. Steve Farley, who had attended dental school with Gene, and asked if he would be interested in going. “As a matter of fact, I would,” Farley told her. “Because I’ve been after my church to get a mission trip started for several years, and nothing’s ever happened. So if you’ve got a church that’s ready to do it, I’ll go with yours.”
The number of volunteers has grown over the years, and 40 were expected to go this year—the highest number ever for the medical volunteers. Unfortunately the trip, which lasts 7-10 days and usually takes place in January, was canceled this year. “The politics and the safety in Honduras were not favorable for us to go,” Burch says. “There had just been a presidential election that was hotly contested, and the inauguration was going to be when we were scheduled to be there, so there was a thought that the airport might shut down, or they might shut down the electricity, water, block the traffic in the streets … that it could be dangerous for us to go, and we wouldn’t be able to do the mission.
“We made a really tough decision and decided to cancel the trip, but knowing that there were all these professionals who had blocked off a week to go there, maybe we could do something here and salvage a little bit of the energy of people wanting to help.”
So the group set up shop in the Mission Frankfort Clinic space, providing extra medical and dental care for locals. The Honduras contingent also has contributed financially to Mission Frankfort for the past couple of years, sharing money generated by its fundraiser, the Frosty 5K, with the clinic.
Aside from First United Methodist Church, private donations and the Frosty 5K also help fund the Honduras mission trip, although “each of our team members pays their own way,” says Burch. “It’s not a vacation they get paid to go on. So not only are they taking time off from their job and using vacation days and paying babysitters or whatever they have to do to be able to go, they’re also paying their own way. It really is a labor of love for people who are committed to doing it, and we usually have maybe 15 of the same people who go every year.”
In addition to the dental and medical professionals who donate their time on the Honduras trip are the members of the support staff, who set up the equipment and get the electricity humming and the water flowing. This team includes the Burches’ son, T.J., a former Marine who covers security; Dr. Charlie Carlson, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky who heads the set-up team; and Arnold “Arnie” Lemay, a hospital engineer, who for many years led the set-up crew. Burch refers to these guys as “MacGyvers” because “they can fix anything. It would be great to give the MacGyvers of the world credit because without them, the rest of us can’t work.”
Burch also gives a tremendous amount of credit to Burris, who has been on every trip; Cleland White, who handles the financial aspects of the Honduras mission; pharmacist Rogers; the Burches’ daughter, JoAnne Burris, a midwife at UK; husband-and-wife physical therapists Terry and Debbie Brown (Debbie also spearheads the Frosty 5K fundraiser); and Sister Larraine Lauter, who has traveled on the mission trip and is executive director of the Louisville-based Water with Blessings, an organization that supplies water filtration to areas lacking clean water. “We were on the mission trip with [Sister Larraine] when she delivered the first filters to 10 women in the little village where we were working,” Burch recalls. “Now, Water with Blessings is in 40-something countries; it’s in Haiti—all over the world. They sent clean water filters to Houston when they had flooding and Puerto Rico, so it’s a lot of little seeds that were planted a long time ago that have really grown. It’s wonderful.”
The First United Methodist Church Ecumenical Honduran Medical/Dental Mission Trip wouldn’t take place without a devoted group of individuals. “It’s a community, really,” Burch says, “because we couldn’t do it without all the support from everybody.”
Volunteers and translators pose for a group shot in Honduras, January 2017
How You Can Help
As nonprofit charitable organizations, Mission Frankfort Clinic and the First United Methodist Church Ecumenical Honduran Medical/Dental Mission Trip welcome the generosity of donors, and due to the nature of the services they provide, also welcome volunteers. For more information on the clinic, visit missionfrankfort.org.
Clinic contributions can be sent to:
Mission Frankfort Clinic
201 Saint Clair Street
Frankfort, KY 40601
Honduras mission trip contributions can be sent to:
First United Methodist Church
221 Washington Street
Frankfort, KY 40601
(Please write “Honduran mission” in the memo line)