After 14 years of talks and organizing, Betty Jean Kerr People’s Health Centers and Amanda Luckett Murphy Hopewell Center officially merged in November of 2024. On Friday, celebrants gathered as a thick green ribbon was cut to highlight the historic event.
Both People’s Health and Hopewell Centers respectively provide wrap around services for those struggling in the community to access physical and mental health care. As a merged health center, services provide to St. Louisans include therapy, dental, ancillary, social services, and more.
City Health Director Mati Hlatshwayo Davis said she is thrilled to see the merger come to fruition “after so many years,” and that essential services will be provided in a time when federal funding for clinical services is getting more difficult to receive.
“At a time where we’re seeing shutdowns of clinics, at the time when we just saw another Walgreens in our community shut down, [they are] able to say, ‘we’re coming together,’” Davis said of People’s and Hopewell.
“We’re going to have comprehensive care. We are going to have 360-degree care. And especially underscoring the importance of both primary care and mental and behavioral health, for me, means everything.”
Ronald Griffin, People’s Health Centers COO, said the difference between the merged health center and other providers in the St. Louis region lies in the immediacy of the patient’s care.
“If you come to behavioral health and you have a dental problem, we can see you the same day without any barriers. If you go to behavioral health and you have a prep problem, you can be seen the same day without any barriers,” Griffin said.
With the merger also comes a sense of togetherness for both staffs of the respective centers. Griffin said the separation could be felt because of the different logos attached to their nametags. Now the staff can come together to provide more services for their patients.
“They had a different name, so they always felt ostracized, not just on the behavioral health side, but the primary care side,” he said.
“It was almost like a stepbrother and sister type mentality. Now we’re fully integrated. We’re better together, and that’s the initiative that started back in September of last year.”
Betty Jean Kerr, the founder of People’s Health Centers, passed away in 2020. The St. Louis American previously reported Kerr was a nurse, who led her life “with the heart of a nurse in everything she did.”
When she retired in 2007, the board of directors selected her son, Dwayne Butler, from a nationwide search as the CEO of the centers.
Davis said she remembers Kerr as a trailblazer and wanted to use the day of the ribbon cutting to pay tribute to her legacy.
“Betty Jean Kerr was literally ahead of her time; a Black woman, entrepreneur and nurse who decided that [People’s Health Center] was essential for her people and for this community. For her son to now be heading it, to have Hopewell, founded by the incredible Dr. Amanda Luckett Murphy, it’s just a beautiful day, and how apt that is during Black History Month,” she said.
Griffin said he hopes the community will support the newly merged center and non-profit, as a means to sustain their services in the future, as federal funding and grant money are slashed from the clinic’s budget.
“Funding is being under assault, so there may not be monies in the future. Some in our area may not be able to bounce back from that,” Griffin said
“Because Mr. Butler was a visionary, He has made a sustainable way for us to be okay without the grant funding. But make no mistake about it, if the community doesn’t come out and support us, then we won’t be here to support them.”
Griffin said he hopes the center will be able to serve the community for years to come, knowing clinics with services such as those provided at the People’s Health centers are necessary for the St. Louis community to thrive.
“We have an obligation to the community that supported us for the 54 years that we’ve been in existence,” Griffin said.
“They supported us, so now it’s our turn to continue providing the best, comprehensive, collaborative health care that we possibly can, to meet their needs without a problem or a barrier to access.”
Namratha Prasad is St. Louis American Comcast NBC-Universal Fellow Reporter