Editorial - May 2003

New office site a tribute to doctor

Published May 9, 2003

The donation of the former medical offices of the late Dr. Murphy Cronland to the Helping Hands Clinic is a fitting tribute to a physician who practiced medicine here for many years. His widow, Jody Cronland, remembered her husband as a helper to those with limited means, and found the use of his former office for that purpose an appealing idea. Helping Hands provides medical assistance to the indigent. Jody Cronland is donating the building in memory of Murphy and two of her children, Joy and Joe. Joy succumbed to leukemia in 1984, and Joe died in a car accident in 1989. She has the full support of her two children, Stan and Sara, in this endeavor. The building is ideally located near the hospital on Dave Warlick Drive.

Jody Cronland will lease the building to the Board of Directors for 12 months for $1. At the end of the year, she and the board will meet to discuss renewing the lease if the clinic continues to fare well.

Four examination rooms will give patients more privacy than the curtains the clinic has been using. It also provides an expansive waiting room that will be more accommodating than that which was available at the Housing Authority area.

The new clinic officially opened at the Housing Authority offices at 806 E. McBee St. in January, with many of the start-up costs provided by area churches. It is staffed on a volunteer basis once a week by physicians, pharmacists, nurses and other personnel from the Lincoln Medical Center and the Lincoln County Health Department.

Helping Hands is a badly needed product from a giving community. Dr. Murphy Cronland certainly would have been a part of it if he were alive today.

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

Terms and Conditions