LOCAL UNION MAKES CLINIC AVAILABLE TO MEMBERS, OTHERS

The new Midtown Family Medical Center, which will serve members of the Craftsman Independent Union and benefit residents near the clinic, will be dedicated Monday to Velma M. Kelley.

Kelley, the mother of Craftsman Union President Fred D. Kelley, was always there for needy people in South Cape Girardeau, her son said. So it is fitting that a medical clinic that also will benefit people of the area be dedicated to her honor, Kelley said.

The union took over the clinic at 24 N. Sprigg St. to provide a clinic for its members, said Charles "Speedy" Wagoner, public relations officer for the Craftsman Union. The clinic had been closed for a while.

The independent union, organized in 1983 and headquartered in Cape Girardeau, has about 800 workers. Contractors pay into a health fund as a fringe benefit to workers, and the health fund pays for medical care for the workers, Kelley said.

While union workers can still see any doctor they choose, if they get medical care through the Midtown clinic, deductible costs are waived and prescriptions are free.

"Our theory is if you get members to go to a clinic where they can get prescriptions free and the deductible for the visit is waived, it can head off catastrophic illness because they are checked regularly," Kelley said. Not only will that benefit members by making them healthier, it will save the health fund money, Kelley said.

The clinic is also open to the community, accepting Medicare and Medicaid payments. Those who can't pay and don't have Medicare or Medicaid will be seen on a case-by-case basis, Kelley said.

Union officials chose the building because there was no other clinic in the area, Kelley said.

The clinic has equipment to perform X-rays, electrocardiograms, breathing treatments and minor surgeries, and a laboratory for running tests, said Dr. Robert L. Hoffman, a family practitioner who runs the clinic.

"We want to be a full-service clinic as a convenience to our patients," Hoffman said. "This way they don't have to go to a hospital or laboratory for tests. We can take care of it right here."

Beginning Monday, the clinic, which has been operating three days per week, will be open five days Mondays through Fridays.

A picture of Velma Kelley will hang in the clinic waiting room.

"If people in the world today would live their lives like my mother did, it would be a better place to live," Kelley said. "She was a good person."

Velma Kelley ran a family grocery store in what was then known as Smelterville, an impoverished area of South Cape. Kelley said his mother would never turn away the needy.

Bill Kitchen, a union member who grew up in Smelterville, remembers her as a generous woman who looked after neighborhood children.

"She took care of us, looked after us. She was like a mother to most of us," Kitchen said.

Smelterville was mainly a collection of shacks, many of which had no running water. It existed from the early 1900s until the early 1970s, when the shacks started coming down.