Yesterday, Congressional candidate Shelia Smoot (AL-07) kicked off her campaign in Selma, Alabama with a rally at the vacant Good Samaritan Hospital. The Good Samaritan was used as an effective backdrop to point out the connection between a civil rights era landmark and the current lack of access to health care in poor and rural areas in AL-07. This hospital was Selma's only African American hospital during the segregation era in Alabama. The hospital closed its doors in 1983.
(Father Maurice Ouellet visiting a parishioner at Good Samaritan Hospital)
History
The Edmundites after years of work in Selma opened the Good Samaritan Hospital in December of 1964. The facility at the time was a rundown infirmary for the city's African American population.
The opening came right before the brunt of violence against non-violent African American protesters.
Violence broke out in nearby Marion on February 18, when a state trooper shot Jimmy Lee Jackson. Jackson was brought to Selma for treatment, since our Edmundite Good Samaritan Hospital had facilities the Marion hospital did not. Despite all our doctors could do, Jackson died on February 26. It was in response to this young demonstrator's death that Dr. King called for a march from Selma to Montgomery.
On March 7, 1965, the brutal confrontation at the Edmund Pettus Bridge caught the attention of the nation. Scores of wounded marchers poured into the emergency room at Good Samaritan Hospital, where doctors, nurses and Sister worked around the clock to meet the crisis.
Synethia Perkins, sister of Selma's first black Mayor James Perkins, was born on Jan. 15, 1965, at the Edmundite's Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma, sharing a birthday with Dr. Martin Luther King. Here Sisters of St. Joseph, Rochester--Sister Josepha holds baby Synethia as King looks on. Sister Felicitas (Mary Weaver) is in the middle and Sister Mary Paul at the far right.
Within a week, your Missions and Hospital were swamped not with victims, but with volunteers—white clergymen, sisters and laymen who had come to Selma to stand with Dr. King against racism. Fathers Crowley, Ouellet and the rest trained them as best they could in the time available, so that the newcomers would not make the kind of mistakes that would endanger themselves and others.
The fact should not be lost that the nuns and white doctors who treated the injured protesters risked their personal safety by giving care as well as personally participating in the marches. Although the hospital closed its doors in 1983, the Edmundites have continued their mission work in the area by starting a rural health medical program where care is provided to poor residents in rural counties surrounding Selma.
Current Situation
(backdrop from yesterday's rally)
Integration eventually lead to the closing of mission hospitals in the South as hospitals merged.
Selma mayor Joe T. Smitherman suggested "Killed by Integration" as its epitaph.
While health care is no longer legally segregated in Selma or the Black Belt region, access to health care is certainly an issue. The counties with the highest African American populations have such high rates of poverty. For example in Dallas Count where Selma is located, unemployment rates are at nearly 17% and 20% of the county's population is without health insurance. 16% of children under 18 are without health insurance according to 2000 census data. Nearby Wilcox County boasts at 22% unemployment rate with 23% of the residents without health insurance.
It is obvious that there is a direct correlation between poverty and access to health care and health insurance coverage. While non-profit groups and rural health outreach fill some of the gap in care, health care issues remain a priority in this region. While, I'm not professing to do any economic analysis wouldn't it be great to reopen such landmarks as Good Samaritans and provide rural health care. The city of Birmingham (AL-07 as well), also has a vacant hospital (Holy Family Hospital) built to treat African American patients in 1954. I'm going to focus on Holy Family Hospital in a future diary.
While we are most thankful to the brave men and women that risked their lives to lead by example treating African-American patients in the heyday of segregation tension, we cannot ignore the great divide in access to health care.