In 1984, Sister Margaret McCaffrey asked Robert Jackson, a young medical resident, to come to the Christian Services nonprofit soup kitchen to see the indigent, homeless and medically disenfranchised residents who gathered there for spiritual and nutritional sustenance. Known to the local community as just "Sister Margaret", she had left her Catholic order in 1970 to serve under private vows the residents of the poorest of Shreveport neighborhoods, "the Bottoms", later named "Ledbetter Heights" after Northwest Louisiana blues singer Huddie Ledbetter, also known as "Leadbelly".

Quiet, caring and deeply committed, she had founded Christian Services and opened the soup kitchen in 1983 in the old Cotton Club on Sprague Street, a place no one went unless they had no choice. In a space designed for 60, she served 200 people twice a day, every day. She acquired and rehabilitated dilapidated houses, opening homeless shelters for men and women. As profiled by Pat McSweeney in Sojourners Magazine in November 1997, "A quarter of a century before Hans K�ng's A Global Ethic appeared in 1993 . . . her dignified leadership inspired whites and blacks, Christians and Jews, to discard cultural habits that discouraged unity and made it possible for thoroughly decent individuals to take little notice of grave injustices in their own backyards."

The young medical resident soon found himself seeing patients on Saturday mornings at the shelter. Her vision would become his, and the Martin Luther King Health Center was born in a cinder block building across the street. Soon other medical residents, physicians, nurses, pharmacists and community volunteers were making the trip to the small clinic and licensed free pharmacy on Sprague Street, donating their services and their time.

Medical volunteers interview and screen patients

Twenty-five years later, despite the death of Sister Margaret in 1998 and two recessions, Dr. Robert Jackson and his team of volunteers are still providing services at the clinic, utilizing a multidisciplinary approach to integrate specialized healthcare services into a patient-centered primary healthcare setting. It is the oldest free clinic and pharmacy in the state of Louisiana. Over one third of Louisiana's population is medically disenfranchised or underserved and nearly half of uninsured adults are without a regular source of health care. Individuals with chronic conditions often wait six months or more to be seen in primary care clinics, resulting in avoidable emergency room visits, which cannot offer the continuity of care persons with chronic conditions need.

The center serves as a safety-net clinic and drives positive systemic change by fostering partnerships among community stakeholders to improve healthcare delivery, strengthen communication, cooperation and respect between patients and providers, and improve the functionality, health status and well-being of the patient and the community.

MLKHC patients are uninsured or underinsured adults. They are predominately minority, suffer from one or more chronic disease conditions, and typically work at minimum wage. They do not qualify for state/federal insurance programs and cannot afford sliding fees for service. Seventy-two percent of MLKHC patients are women; eighty-one percent are minority; seventy-seven percent have household incomes of less than $15,000.

Still staffed primarily by volunteers offering primary healthcare, diagnostic laboratory services and free medications, the clinic now also operates Asthma and Diabetes specialty clinics, a women's heath clinic with mammograms, STD/HIV testing and counseling, emergency dental services, and mental health counseling. Feist-Weiller Cancer Center provides use of their mobile mammography unit each month; a contract with the Louisiana HIV/STD program office enables them to provide testing to patients during their clinic visit. HIV positives are referred to the LSUHSC Viral Disease Clinic. Mobile medical outreach to low income rural areas is provided through a partnership with another nonprofit, St. Luke's Medical Ministry, supported by the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana.

Patients wait in the comfortable waiting room

A diverse range of community partners support their efforts, including Christus Health Systems, the Community Foundation of Shreveport-Bossier, the Sisters of Charity, local churches and the United Way of Northwest LA. City of Shreveport CDBG funds help support the costs of a part-time pharmacy tech and eligibility coordinator and software for an Electronic Medical Records program, interfaced with pharmacy software and Patient Assistance Program applications.

Thanks to the generosity of one of the volunteer physicians, they will soon move to a larger facility a few blocks away, allowing them to increase their patient volume and provide two evening clinics each month. Churches, businesses, professional associations and foundations are providing the funds to renovate the donated facility and secure equipment and fixtures for the new clinic and pharmacy.

It's been a long time since Sister Margaret showed medical resident Robert Jackson prospective patients gathering in a soup kitchen on Sprague Street. Who could have predicted what the vision and determination of one woman of faith could realize in a forgotten impoverished neighborhood?