The Vanderbilt Comprehensive Care Clinic has received a nearly $54,000 grant for 2014-2015 from the Baptist Healing Trust (BHT) for its Pharmacy Support Program, which provides free or low-cost medications to people with HIV/AIDS.
The clinic was one of 24 local non-profit health service organizations that received grants in the third quarter of 2014 from BHT, a private grant-making foundation established when Nashville’s Baptist Hospital became part of Saint Thomas Health Services in 2002.
This is the fifth grant BHT has awarded to the clinic, formerly known as the Comprehensive Care Center (CCC), for its Pharmacy Support Program.
In 2013, the program enabled 166 patients to receive 584 critically important medications for little or no cost to manage HIV disease and other conditions, including diabetes, heart disease and mental illness.
While the federal Ryan White Program covered many of the health services received by the clinic’s nearly 3,000 patients last year, it does not pay for all the medications they need.
“The services and compassionate care provided by the VCCC meet the needs of some of our community’s most vulnerable members,” said BHT President and CEO Cathy Self, Ph.D. “We are grateful for their work and are proud to support their efforts to create access to this needed care.”
Stephen Raffanti, M.D., MPH, the clinic’s chief medical officer, founded the CCC in 1994. One of the nation’s largest outpatient HIV/AIDS treatment facilities, it moved to Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks in 2010.
