The Alyce G. Clarke Center for Medically Fragile Children has finally opened in Jackson. It’s located on a campus off of Ridgewood Road.
The center’s namesake Alyce G. Clarke was the first Black woman to serve in Mississippi’s legislature. She advocated for the legislation to create the center for years and says the facility’s opening is a blessing.
Shamira Muhammad
Center for Medically Fragile Children Opens
“It's been a long time coming and it's a much needed program,” Clarke said.
The 20-bed facility has brightly colored furniture. Children’s books line the shelves. Cribs and baby walkers sit beside medical equipment and oxygen. The center is designed to care for patients of Batson Children’s Hospital with complex health needs between the age of one month up to 18 years old.
Shamira Muhammad, MPB News
Shamira Muhammad
Shamira Muhammad, MPB News
“These are children who have complex care needs,” Dr. Mary Taylor, the chair of pediatrics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, said. “They don't necessarily require hospitalization and don't necessarily require minute to minute medical management, but they have maybe technical needs like the need for a ventilator for example or some special feeding equipment. Those types of things that might require them to be in a hospital setting or in a skilled nursing setting.”
Dr. Taylor says while some patients may need to stay in the center for years, others may need only weeks or months.
“When a child, for example, needs a tracheostomy and a ventilator, they have to stay in the hospital for at least six weeks and usually more like eight weeks to three months for the parents to learn to care for the child at home and to prepare them for going home,” she said.
The center is the first of its kind in Mississippi. Dr. Taylor says her team visited a similar facility in Oklahoma to become acquainted with how the center may run while allowing patients the opportunity to stay closer to home.
“The closest one that we know of is Kentucky,” Dr. Taylor said. “Some of our patients that we've had for many, many years actually moved to Kentucky several years ago.”
The center has outdoor porches and a dining hall. It’s located in a wooded area intended to provide a cozier feel for the young, long-term residents.
“It's close enough to the hospital to be very safe,” Dr. Taylor said. “If they need something, we can transport the patients back to the hospital to get care or to take them to their clinic visits.”
The facility will welcome its first patient today.