Celebrating The Healing Place: Local Recovery Luminary and Our Medical Society Legacy
by John David Kolter, MD
Dr. Will Ward, a long-time medical society member, delivered remarks to several hundred attendees at the recent Celebrate Freedom Dinner. The annual marquee event, held this year on Aug. 9, benefited The Healing Place and celebrated recently retired director, Jay Davidson. Recounting the very different times in which he found himself in the 1970s as a volunteer at Mission House homeless shelter, the forerunner to today’ s The Healing Place, Dr. Ward reminded the audience that homelessness and addiction were not clearly linked at the time. Further, services, a far cry from the integrated and holistic models now available, were limited for those living with addiction. Dr. Ward, serving as a living witness and participant, recollected the leap of faith taken by the Jefferson County Medical Society( JCMS), decades ago, investing as a founding institution for The Healing Place. The Greater Louisville Medical Society( GLMS), the evolution of the former JCMS *, continues to provide support through the GLMS Foundation, serving this year as a Gold Sponsor for the Celebrate Freedom Dinner. Decades on, The Healing Place, too, has evolved, under Mr. Davidson’ s leadership and innovation, to become a nationally recognized center for addiction treatment.
The Healing Place has grown far beyond its humble beginnings as the homeless shelter dedicated to serving the addicted in the 1970s. Most shelters at the time, according to Dr. Ward, would not admit a homeless person for a bed if under the influence of drugs or alcohol, leaving many with limited shelter access. Amplified by suburban flight and urban blight, the streets for the addicted and homeless were particularly tough. Father John H. Morgan, a local Catholic priest, whose 1998 obituary recounted his outspokenness in“ caring for the poor and downtrodden,” recognized the need for shelter among those approaching his rectory at the old St. Patrick’ s Cathedral, 13th
and Market Streets in Louisville. He aimed to change the dearth of services for the homeless and, with the support of his parishioners, opened Mission House in 1971. Affably known as“ Father Morgan’ s Flophouse,” he took in those who were down on their luck and afflicted with what, at the time, hadn’ t been fully recognized as the disease of addiction. However, he clearly recognized the thread of addiction among the homeless walking through the doors of his shelter.
In the early 1980s Father Morgan approached Dr. Ward, then a practicing local physician and active in the JCMS, noting the need for medical care for those passing through his shelter. Dr. Ward, struck by the need of this underserved population, approached then JCMS Board Chair, Dr. Kenneth Peters, requesting support for physician staffing of medical care at the shelter.
Dr. Ward’ s entreaty occurred at a somewhat serendipitous time as Dr. Peters had recently returned from the annual AMA meeting. According to a July 1980 New York Times article, recounting highlights of the meeting, there was not only contentious debate about the role of government in health care and physician ethics but there was also a vigorous effort to change the public perception of both physicians and organized medicine as inward focused and uncaring. Local surgeon, Dr. Hoyt Gardner, served as the AMA president in 1979-80, and was quoted in the same New York Times article,“ We stand for adequate distribution of care to the people whoever and wherever they may be— to the people in hinterlands, in ghettos, on Indian reservations, in farm-migrant camps, in schools where children lack immunization and in jails where inmates lack almost every sort of care.”
In this effort to change perception, Dr. Peters heard, through his meeting attendance, a call to tithe not only of money but also time. Heeding this call, Dr. Peters presented Dr. Ward’ s request
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