New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward will be forever linked with some of the worst destruction that the floods that followed the levee failures in the wake of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina inflicted on the city of New Orleans.

The predominantly African-American working class neighborhood was ground zero for the diaspora of Orleans residents uprooted from the community that for generations they had called home.

The Lower 9th Ward is that segment of New Orleans bounded by the Industrial Canal to the west, Florida Avenue to the north, St. Bernard Parish to the east, and the Holy Cross area and the Mississippi River to
the South. This neighborhood bore the first brunt of the post-Katrina floods.

The struggle to recover from the flood continues to this day. Lower 9th Ward Community Health Clinic has been one rock solid bases upon which that recovery is being built, responding to the healthcare needs of this resilient neighborhood and its people.

The Lower 9th Ward Community Health Clinic was a community-driven response to fill the unmet healthcare needs that emerged in the wake of the post- Katrina floods.

The governmental and institutional response to the healthcare crisis in New Orleans was fragmented and anemic. The priivate sector response was slow and uncoordinated. While others watched and waited, members of the community with deep ties to the Lower 9th Ward — along with dedicated volunteers — sprang into action to create their own clinic.

Common Ground Relief’s Michelle Shin and Leaders Creating Change through Contribution (LC3) committed themselves to providing encouragement, guidance, and professional expertise to key stakeholders of the Lower 9th Ward Clinc’s planning group. In addition, LC3 provided seed capital and sweat equity for the project.

Patricia Berryhill, RN, a Lower 9th Ward resident and co-founder of the clinic, allowed use of her home for the express purpose that it would be used as a health clinic.

Alice Craft-Kerney, RN, a former resident of the Lower 9th Ward and co-founder of the clinic, spearheaded the effort and was a driving force coordinating the efforts of all the participants who transformed Pat Berryhill’s home into a clinic.

Through the combined efforts of these numanitarian and community activists, and highly-skilled local and out-of-state volunteers, the clinic moved from concept to reality. The enormous bureaucratic and financial ostacles to the clinic opening its doors were no match for this tenacious group of healthcare advocates.

Today, the Lower 9th Ward Health Clinic operates as an independent 501(c)3, with a diverse board of directorors. Alice Craft-Kerney serves as the executive director; Patricia Berryhill is the clinical director.

The clinic offiically opened on February 27, 2007, and the first patient to enter the door was so ill that she was transferred by ambulance to a local emergency room. Since then, thousands of patients have been treated for a variety of illnesses at the clinic. The quality of care provided and the appreciation of the patients for that care have helped the clinic quickly forge enduring bonds with this battered, but unbowed community.