Great Falls medical clinic to stay open

Fittingly, the news came in a gym where cheers are the norm for this little town with the big heart, that boasts a stellar high school basketball team. A standing ovation from about 300 concerned people, many of them senior citizens in Great Falls late Thursday, when they heard the town's sole medical clinic will not close after all.

The announcement by Chester Regional Medical Center CEO Craig Walker came after three weeks of uncertainty after the hospital authority floated the possibility of closing the hospital-owned clinic. People in Great Falls, a town of about 2,500 in southeastern Chester County, were so upset over the potential loss of the clinic that about 650 of them signed a petition asking that the clinic remain open. There were fliers posted, letters written and fingers pointed.

The people in Great Falls so love their one clinic, and their one town doctor -- 82-year-old Hollis Snead, who has practiced in Great Falls for 55 years -- that Snead himself was given a standing ovation Thursday night when his name was mentioned. People stomped on the bleachers for Doc Snead. The meeting began with little old ladies in a school gym stating out loud to anybody who would listen: "Don't take our clinic!"

"We have to have this clinic," said Agnes Hicks, 72, who sat behind Dr. Snead. "People here need it."

Snead, who works a limited schedule and sees patients with nurse practitioner Terry Sims and a nursing staff, sat in the bleachers like the rest of the crowd and was relieved to hear the clinic would remain. Sims was right there clapping, too.

"I love them all," Snead said of the crowd. "I want to keep serving them."

Walker told the crowd that ambulance transportation from Great Falls to the county's only hospital in Chester is crucial to the financial viability of keeping the clinic open long term in the difficult economy that has crippled rural counties such as Chester. He said the hospital would look again at the number of patients from Great Falls who use the Chester hospital in six months to a year.

The hospital, owned by Health Management Associates, competes with hospitals in Lancaster, Rock Hill and Columbia, Walker said, but offers advantages in convenience and service that the community in Great Falls should use if it wants the clinic to remain.

"As long as this community supports Chester Regional Medical Center, you will have a clinic in Great Falls," Walker said as the crowd clapped. "Can I get an amen?"

Dr. Sam Stone, a second-generation family practice doctor in Chester who for years was chairman of the Chester County hospital board, told the crowd the clinic will not close under any circumstances and he was caught "off-guard" by any notion that the clinic might be shuttered. Stone said he would move part of his practice to Great Falls if that is what it takes to keep the clinic open long term.

The clinic is crucial in Great Falls, Stone said, because the community has many older people who can't travel for basic medical care and Dr. Snead's 55 years of medical service to the community must be continued. However, Stone said, Great Falls needs to stay a part of Chester County's economy and the hospital must be financially sound for the county -- with more than 20 percent unemployment -- to ever regain its economic foothold and recruit new industry, Stone said.

"We must have a hospital in Chester or we can never grow and prosper," Stone said.

Pattie Wishert, office and practice manager for Dr. Snead's Great Falls Medical Clinic for 16 years, urged residents to support the clinic by supporting the hospital.

Near the end of the meeting, Walker, the hospital CEO, even signed the petition that had made the rounds in Great Falls over the past couple weeks and had sparked a community rallying cry not seen since the Chester County school board was considering consolidating Great Falls and Lewisville High Schools early last year. The town decades ago was a thriving mill community but lost much of its employment base when the mills closed. However, the community is proud and feisty. In 2006, a huge mill fire downtown forced evacuation of hundreds of people for days and dozens of volunteers pitched in to both fight the fire and feed and clothe and shelter the rest of the people.

Walker introduced several doctors and staffers at the hospital and urged the community to use their services. Walker was blunt about the long-term future, saying near the end of the meeting: "Know this -- health care is a business, and we have to work together."

Yet even if health care is a business, that petition drive and community organizing to save the clinic, spearheaded by a tough lady who works at a heating and air-conditioning business named Kathy Bell, was not about dollars. It was about proud people.

"I'm the sheriff of Chester County, but I'm here because I live here and this clinic is important," said Richard Smith, who is, yes, the elected sheriff of Chester County. The elected supervisor of Chester County, Carlisle Roddey, was there at that community meeting, and the Great Falls member of the Chester County Council, Archie Lucas, was there.

"The story people need to know isn't the clinic closing, because it won't, it's how Great Falls comes together when they have to come together," Lucas said. "Great Falls stood up here tonight."

The people of Great Falls sure did work together and stand up, mobilizing in just a couple of weeks a wall of resistance to keep the clinic open. Their voices, even if some were old, were heard loud and clear and Walker the CEO admitted as much in the meeting. In those stands near where Dr. Snead sat with his wife of 50 years, Toni, dozens of people came up to thank Snead before, during and after the meeting. Toni Snead, a nurse, worked at the clinic for decades before retiring.

"That one, her momma brings cakes to the clinic, homemade of course," said Toni Snead, pointing into the crowd. "That one, he delivered her mother and her father. And her brothers. Of course, that was years ago. That girl on the seat in front, she fell off her horse and my husband took care of her."

The patients -- who are really friends of Dr. Snead, and Terry Sims the nurse practitioner who started out with the Great Falls Rescue Squad then went off to school and came home to help his neighbors -- wore ties and motorcycle boots. They were little old ladies and men with firm handshakes, at least one judge, and guys with their names stitched on their work shirts.

All, almost 300, clapped for Terry Sims and called Dr. Hollis Snead the greatest word in small-town medicine: "Doc."

All thanked them for their loyalty. Sims and Snead thanked them right back.

"Come see me," said Doc, Hollis Snead, to each and every one of them.

Nancy Jones, a school nurse, put it this way after the meeting as the crowd left: "We love Great Falls. We love our clinic. We love Dr. Snead and Terry Sims. We were heard on this one. The people spoke."

This story was originally published May 15, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Great Falls medical clinic to stay open."