PLUM HEALTH: DELIVERING AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE
IN DETROIT, MICHIGAN
Submitted by Dr. Paul Thomas
COVER STORY
to 12,000 people in the city. This is horribly underserved, and as a result, folks in my community forego healthcare because they cannot access the services that they need, either because of expense or distance.
The biggest threats to health in my community are intergenerational poverty, low health literacy, and a dearth of healthy options. Families living in poverty that cannot afford reliable transportation become victims of their circumstances. They are trapped in underwater mortgages, with children in failing schools and have limited access to healthy grocery stores, parks, doctors, and dentists.
Statistically, Detroit boasts a median household income of $25,980 (http://www.city-data.com/city/Detroit-Michigan.html) and greater than 50% of Detroiters receive Medicaid benefits. Additionally, Detroit has higher rates of childhood asthma and cancer (https://www.mdch.state.mi.us/pha/osr/Cancer/CancerInMichigan2009.pdf) than other areas in the State of Michigan.
With all of these social and economic factors in mind, I started Plum Health. There is no better place in Michigan to deliver affordable, accessible healthcare services than Detroit and I am proud to be serving a community of people that can benefit the most from these services.
Our modest family medicine clinic is within the former Third Precinct of the Detroit Police Department in an economically depressed area of Detroit called Southwest or Mexican town. We are in the shadows of the historic Michigan Central Station that has been abandoned for the last three decades. The Michigan Central Station dominates the skyline in my neighborhood and dominates the emotional landscape of the neighborhood, as well as the region, as it is symbolic of Detroit’s once grand past and current state of economic uncertainty.
We are a stone’s throw from the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Detroit to Windsor and from our main entrance you can see the steeples of the Canadian churches on the other side of the Detroit River. Of note, I intentionally set up my practice in an urban and underserved area. There are roughly 50 – 100 primary care doctors in the City of Detroit for roughly 680,000 people, and that equates to 1 doctor for every 6,000