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Alabama Doctor Prevails Through Fire and Rain
by Candi Helseth
Dr. Regina Benjamin has kept her medical clinic running in Bayou La Batre, Ala., despite a fire and two hurricanes in the last eight years.
Three times in the last eight years Dr. Regina Benjamin’s medical clinic in Bayou La Batre, Ala, has been totally destroyed – twice by hurricanes and then by fire. In the face of adversity, Benjamin has proven time and again that she will overcome.
From caring for local patients who lost their homes and livelihoods in Bayou La Batre to representing the needs of underprivileged people on a national level, Benjamin is a champion for the poor. Through her service on various state and federal medical organizations, she has influenced change. She was the first African-American woman and first person under 40 to be elected to the American Medical Association (AMA) board of trustees. She is actively involved in several other organizations, including her role as a member of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. Long before it became a media issue, Benjamin addressed issues such as prescription drug coverage for senior citizens and inequities in health insurance coverage.
“My passion is the uninsured and underinsured,” she said. “The biggest health care issue for me is getting health care coverage for all. About one-half of my patients are uninsured. Most work. They make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but they can’t afford to buy insurance.”
Many Bayou La Batre residents are self-employed in the fishing industry, a high-risk occupation that insurance companies prefer to avoid. More than one in five families lives below poverty level, and about 2,000 of the town’s 2,300 people lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina.
“Dr. Benjamin works on their behalf,” said Nell Stoddard, a 77-year-old nurse in Benjamin’s clinic known in the community as Granny Nell. “I tell you this, she loves the patients and she expects us to love them. And we do. I hug every patient that comes in that door. And we see everyone who comes in because if we don’t treat them, we know they won’t get care.”
Stoddard, who retired at 65 but returned to the clinic two days later because she got bored at home, said Benjamin instructs her staff to take every patient that seeks help regardless of their ability to pay, to distribute medications the clinic has on hand free of charge to patients they know can’t pay and to provide professional assistance to help patients get on patient assistance programs.
Benjamin’s networking demonstrates its value when she refers her rural—often uninsured—patients to larger centers for specialized procedures. Having served as president of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama and as a member of the state physician licensing board, Benjamin has developed relationships with physicians throughout the state. No one turns away her patients.
Benjamin also goes to bat for her patients. She has successfully taken on insurance companies that refused coverage on behalf of her patients, getting them to reverse their stand. She even helped a young family save their home from demolition. She says her larger networks outside the rural community, along with a master’s degree in business, have helped her better assist her patients.
She confronts personal adversity with the same unflagging determination. In 1998, Hurricane Georgia destroyed the clinic she had opened in 1990. She built a new clinic further inland on four-foot stilts. Hurricane Katrina wiped it out in 2005. The next day Benjamin was back at work, seeing patients on the town’s auditorium stage and making house calls, which she routinely does anyway. She didn’t charge the patients, took no salary for herself and paid her staff from a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) rural outreach grant that she was able to secure. She mortgaged her home, which escaped the hurricane’s wrath, to rebuild the third time. The new clinic burned down on New Year’s Day of 2006, the day before it was set to open.
“She is one determined lady,” Stoddard said. “I think it’s the people and patients that keep her here. They just love her.”
Since the fire, Benjamin and her staff have operated from a small house they renovated. Construction is underway on her fourth clinic, this time made even more expensive by new, stricter regulations that demand 40-foot pilings and other weather-related protections.
Her work on behalf of underprivileged people has brought her into the limelight at times, and she was awarded the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights as well as several other national recognitions. But it’s the daily interaction with her patients and community that are her greatest reward.
"I feel like I am really part of this community and they’re part of me,” she said. “When I look around, many of my patients lost homes but my house was fine. And we’ve been very fortunate because we didn’t lose any lives in Bayou La Batre like our friends in Mississippi and Louisiana. I feel blessed.”
by Candi Helseth
Dr. Regina Benjamin has kept her medical clinic running in Bayou La Batre, Ala., despite a fire and two hurricanes in the last eight years.
Three times in the last eight years Dr. Regina Benjamin’s medical clinic in Bayou La Batre, Ala, has been totally destroyed – twice by hurricanes and then by fire. In the face of adversity, Benjamin has proven time and again that she will overcome.
From caring for local patients who lost their homes and livelihoods in Bayou La Batre to representing the needs of underprivileged people on a national level, Benjamin is a champion for the poor. Through her service on various state and federal medical organizations, she has influenced change. She was the first African-American woman and first person under 40 to be elected to the American Medical Association (AMA) board of trustees. She is actively involved in several other organizations, including her role as a member of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. Long before it became a media issue, Benjamin addressed issues such as prescription drug coverage for senior citizens and inequities in health insurance coverage.
“My passion is the uninsured and underinsured,” she said. “The biggest health care issue for me is getting health care coverage for all. About one-half of my patients are uninsured. Most work. They make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but they can’t afford to buy insurance.”
Many Bayou La Batre residents are self-employed in the fishing industry, a high-risk occupation that insurance companies prefer to avoid. More than one in five families lives below poverty level, and about 2,000 of the town’s 2,300 people lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina.
“Dr. Benjamin works on their behalf,” said Nell Stoddard, a 77-year-old nurse in Benjamin’s clinic known in the community as Granny Nell. “I tell you this, she loves the patients and she expects us to love them. And we do. I hug every patient that comes in that door. And we see everyone who comes in because if we don’t treat them, we know they won’t get care.”
Stoddard, who retired at 65 but returned to the clinic two days later because she got bored at home, said Benjamin instructs her staff to take every patient that seeks help regardless of their ability to pay, to distribute medications the clinic has on hand free of charge to patients they know can’t pay and to provide professional assistance to help patients get on patient assistance programs.
Benjamin’s networking demonstrates its value when she refers her rural—often uninsured—patients to larger centers for specialized procedures. Having served as president of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama and as a member of the state physician licensing board, Benjamin has developed relationships with physicians throughout the state. No one turns away her patients.
Benjamin also goes to bat for her patients. She has successfully taken on insurance companies that refused coverage on behalf of her patients, getting them to reverse their stand. She even helped a young family save their home from demolition. She says her larger networks outside the rural community, along with a master’s degree in business, have helped her better assist her patients.
She confronts personal adversity with the same unflagging determination. In 1998, Hurricane Georgia destroyed the clinic she had opened in 1990. She built a new clinic further inland on four-foot stilts. Hurricane Katrina wiped it out in 2005. The next day Benjamin was back at work, seeing patients on the town’s auditorium stage and making house calls, which she routinely does anyway. She didn’t charge the patients, took no salary for herself and paid her staff from a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) rural outreach grant that she was able to secure. She mortgaged her home, which escaped the hurricane’s wrath, to rebuild the third time. The new clinic burned down on New Year’s Day of 2006, the day before it was set to open.
“She is one determined lady,” Stoddard said. “I think it’s the people and patients that keep her here. They just love her.”
Since the fire, Benjamin and her staff have operated from a small house they renovated. Construction is underway on her fourth clinic, this time made even more expensive by new, stricter regulations that demand 40-foot pilings and other weather-related protections.
Her work on behalf of underprivileged people has brought her into the limelight at times, and she was awarded the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights as well as several other national recognitions. But it’s the daily interaction with her patients and community that are her greatest reward.
"I feel like I am really part of this community and they’re part of me,” she said. “When I look around, many of my patients lost homes but my house was fine. And we’ve been very fortunate because we didn’t lose any lives in Bayou La Batre like our friends in Mississippi and Louisiana. I feel blessed.”
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