Christ Community Health Services has focused on fulfilling the physical, spiritual and emotional needs of the poor, the uninsured and the homeless in Memphis since 1995. Through our strategically placed health care centers and outreach programs, we provide high-quality health care and other services to thousands of patients, caregivers, students and families each year. Our goal is to go where the need is greatest to provide quality services in the name of Jesus Christ.

Memphis and Shelby County have been consistently named as having one of the highest – if not the highest – infant mortality rate in the United States. Annually, there are approximately 500 stillborn and infant deaths countywide. In order to combat the infant mortality crisis, Christ Community Health Services launched the Centering Pregnancy program in June 2008. Click here for more information.
HIV/AIDS continues to be an epidemic, particularly in the South and in Memphis. In 2005, there were 7,621 reported cases of HIV/AIDS in Shelby County, and that number continues to rise. In response to the growing need for HIV/AIDS care, Christ Community launched its HIV/AIDS program in May 2006.Click here for more information.

Fred's Story

by Dr. Rick Donlon, one of four founding physicians of CCHS

Fred is in his mid-30s and has been HIV positive for 10 years. I met him after one of his multiple admissions to our county hospital for serious opportunistic infections, including overwhelming histoplasmosis (a fungus native to the Mississippi delta). Fred's "CD4" or "T-cell count" was down to 6; a count less than 200 qualifies as AIDS. His bone marrow was infiltrated with fungus and had all but stopped producing blood products. He had no appetite; daily diarrhea had reduced him to skin and bones. He required a host of medications to fight various infections that his body was incapable of resisting. Fred was dying. Though he knew about his disease and the possibility of treatment, he had never been willing to attend the local public HIV clinic. His reasons were a complex combination of shame, denial and a culturally rooted distrust of the medical establishment.