Good Samaritan Clinic unveils plans for new $2.8 million Cullman facility

Apr. 22—For 20 years, Cullman's Good Samaritan Clinic has offered uninsured and financially constrained residents of Cullman County a means of obtaining basic health care services. Through all that time, it's supplied a vital health connection that, beyond a basic (and often costly) ER visit, simply wouldn't have existed otherwise. In 2004, as in 2024, the clinic has functioned as the area's only no-cost health care resource, marshaling the volunteer good will of local care professionals, financial donors and community-sourced members to staff its board of directors.

Now the clinic is making a major new move. On Monday, current Good Samaritan director Jolanda Hutson looked on alongside founding director Jerry Jacob as board members unveiled plans to construct a purpose-built new home for the clinic that, when finished, will expand its menu of services to patients while still retaining its small paid staff of seven people.

Plans for the new facility are moving forward thanks to a $1 million grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission, bolstered by substantial additional contributions from the city of Cullman, Cullman County Commission, Cullman Regional Foundation and Cullman Regional Medical Center. At a projected cost of $2.8 million, construction on the new clinic already is funded at $2 million, leaving $800,000 in remaining funds yet to be raised through a capital campaign that will solicit members of the community — whether individuals, businesses or other organizations — to help push the project past the finish line.

The nonprofit's new facility will reside in a location in south Cullman that affords far more convenience for quick, easy and discreet access than Good Samaritan's current clinic site in the basement area of the old Cullman Medical Center, a space that has continuously been donated for the past two decades by longtime health care operator Frank Brown. Monday's announcement, which drew a throng of local elected officials as well as U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt, was held at the 2.5 acres of undeveloped land along Veterans Drive (also known as Short Street, located between U.S. Highway 31 and First Avenue SW) where the new facility will be built.

Thanking both Jacob and Hutson for their stewardship of the clinic from its modest beginnings onward toward its current growth phase, Good Samaritan Medical Director Dr. Jeremy Stidham reminisced about how the Cullman community had embraced the clinic and its mission from its very earliest days.

"There was a line of people down the street waiting to get into this clinic [on its opening day in January 2004] that was going to provide acute care," said Stidham. "This was sort of an urgent care type of clinic at the outset. They had so many people that they couldn't see them all that day. and the need for that type of care has persisted. So, 20 years later, we have a clinic that was open three hours a week — now open full-time; that was staffed entirely by volunteers — now with a group of outstanding full-time employees.

"What has not changed in 20 years," he added, "is the need for what we do. ... What we need is a community like [Cullman] to make this work. There are many other communities that have attempted to make this work, where it does not turn into what we have. What we have now, compared to what we started with, is quality primary care. What we started with was quality acute care. Primary care is where we meet the needs of the community. That is what causes people to be able to live the quality of life that we expect in this town."

In addition to retaining all of the primary care services provided at its old location, the new 5,040 square-foot clinic is designed to accommodate more than 3,600 patients annually, and will offer a drive-through medicine dispensary, as well as four examination rooms, a reception area, an indoor dispensary area with waiting room access, and a lab. Hutson noted the new facility also will include a cardio training and fitness room, an amenity that aims to serve the preventive function of encouraging patients to take proactive steps toward improving their own health.

"With this new standalone facility in a more high-traffic area, people hopefully will be more likely, first, to know about us; and second, to feel more comfortable coming to see us," said Hutson.

"Once our patients do come to the clinic, they absolutely love the staff. They love our volunteers. It's when we're able to get patients before they develop that chronic condition, before they get so far advanced in that type of condition, that we truly can make a bigger impact. We're going to have a cardio room in the new clinic so that our patients will be able to come during normal clinic hours and exercise. We're going to offer some low-impact aerobic exercises — something that anyone, even someone who might have some type of mobility limitation — can do."

Prevention and community-based primary care aren't just significant at the individual scale, they're also important for the financial health of the hospital systems in the areas that clinics like Good Samaritan serve. Patients who can't afford to pay for basic health care, save both themselves and hospitals like Cullman Regional money by coming to the clinic, in the process preventing incurred medical debts that they themselves often can't pay — and that hospitals have to absorb as budget-decimating write-offs.

Qualifying patients who receive primary care at the Good Samaritan Clinic have access to a full range of services that includes care for routine illnesses, as well as comprehensive care for patients with chronic conditions like diabetes. The clinic also offers dental extractions, hearing evaluations, mental health counseling, social services and community health screenings.

For more information about the clinic's new construction project or to donate to its capital campaign, visit Good Samaritan online at goodsamaritancullman.com. An easy-to-spot sign marking the construction site (located just north of the VFW Post 2214 on Veterans Drive and across from the Yates Chance Christian Bookstore) also features a scannable QR code that directs smart phone users to the project's information web page.

Benjamin Bullard can be reached by phone at 256-734-2131 ext. 234.