Medical center continues clinic support with $55K grant

In the eyes and healthy bodies of hundreds of area families, Medical Center of McKinney (MCM) is the gift that keeps on giving.

The hospital on Thursday presented a $55,000 grant to the Children and Community Health Center (CCHC) of McKinney to help fund a part-time nurse practitioner that enables the free clinic to increase its service time from 24 to 40 hours a week.

"From the bricks and the mortar to the latest projects and all the competitive issues, and who's recruiting what and who's got the new technology, we really lose sight of what we're in this business for," said Ernest Lynch, CEO of MCM. "What we're in this business for is to take care of people in need."

And MCM has taken care of the clinic since its inception eight years ago, providing more than $500,000 in imaging and testing services to clinic patients, and defraying operating expenses by subsidizing its rent by more than $240,000. Add in continuous cash donations and grants, and MCM has supported CCHC with more than $850,000 since 2005.

With such constant support, the clinic continues to ensure McKinney-area patients receive basic health care, medications, lab work and x-rays, luxuries they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford. The clinic serves about 800 patients every year, and the recent grant should push the annual count close to 1,600 health care recipients and 6,000 patient visits, said Sandy Dickey, CCHC executive director.

"We have counted on Medical Center of McKinney as a partner ever since we opened," said Mollie McCune, CCHC board president. "They were the first members of our community to step up and help us in a major way."

Since the 501(c)(3) public clinic opened its doors Aug. 2, 2004, it has conducted more than 20,000 patient visits, all medically uninsured and underserved northern Collin County residents. Volunteer physicians, nurses, pharmacists, translators and office staff work with part-time nurse practitioners to ensure the entire community receives health care.

The clinic operates on MCM's Wysong campus on the southwest corner of Central Expressway and Virginia Parkway in McKinney, in space the hospital donated. It is an affiliate of the Volunteers in Medicine Institute (VIM), and until 2008 was the only VIM clinic in Texas.

But VIM provides no monetary support to CCHC, so MCM's physical and financial connection to CCHC fosters an ongoing relationship between the two health care facilities.

And it keeps alive CCHC founder Mary Nelle Cummins' dream, which started as a nightmare in 1967. After a minor car accident forced her onto a lethal combination of medications, Cummins slipped into a coma and a "life-after-death event," she said, during which a late family friend walked her down a tunnel of light to witness doctors and nurses operating on her.

Then 32 years later, she had another vivid dream, a "vision from God" that directed her "to start a free children's health clinic that would be connected to and supported by the community," she recalls. Fewer than 5 years after this dream, she and a team of benefactors opened CCHC.

During Thursday's grant presentation, Cummins reminded CCHC and MCM staff of the "God things" that have kept the clinic afloat as it's developed. One such "God thing," reminiscent of the present situation, occurred early on when Cummins was working 40 hours a week at the clinic.

The CCHC board discussed hiring a part-time practitioner, an addition that would cost about $15,000. Just a week later, Cummins accepted a $15,000 check from the hospital.

"We do call this God's clinic," she said. "It's given us the opportunity to be the hands and feet in our community."

Those limbs will again function through a part-time nurse practitioner. Once CCHC finds one, its doors will be open every day but Wednesday, and later each day. The clinic plans to update its available service hours by early June.

With MCM support, it will keep giving its own gift.

"There's no other clinic in this area that offers what we offer," Dickey said. "We'll be the first full-time free clinic in Collin County."

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