Group pushing for kidney disease awareness

By Nick Tabor, New Era Senior Staff Writer

Wanting more autonomy, some local medical workers split off last year from the National Kidney Foundation and formed an independent group based in Hopkinsville.

It let them continue providing services for renal failure patients — medications for poor patients, rides to dialysis appointments — but with fewer bureaucratic complications, said Sarah Rowland, the group’s treasurer.

The group is using its newfound freedom to create an annual picnic for dialysis patients and staff. This year’s picnic, scheduled for Sept. 16 at the A.W. Watts Senior Center, will be the second.

Pennyroyal Center’s care takes teamwork

Its staff integrates physical, mental treatment on an unprecedented scale

By Nick Tabor, New Era Senior Staff Writer

Several years ago, Shirley Porter’s depression and physical ailments were preventing her from keeping a job — and thus from affording medical treatment.

She knew she faced the risk of diabetes, and she knew her blood pressure sometimes shot up too high. But Porter, now 49, felt so lethargic some mornings that she struggled just to brush her teeth and comb her hair.

One day, she told her therapy group at the Pennyroyal Mental Health Center her head ached and her arm felt a little numb.

The Pennyroyal Center was in the early stages of developing its primary care center. A nurse checked Porter’s blood pressure. It was 217 over 135 — high enough to cause a stroke.

Beyond duty

73-year-old doctor puts skills to work at free clinic

By Nick Tabor
New Era Staff Writer 
During his 38 years running an internal medicine practice on South Main Street, Dr. Terry Fuqua says he brought in a smaller income than most of Hopkinsville’s physicians.

He’d spend an hour to do every physical thoroughly. He eschewed high-tech tests—“gobbledygook,” he says—preferring to test patients with just his stethoscope and his five senses, unless he specifically needed the assistance of a machine. He made house calls for patients who couldn’t get to his building. Often he took patients into his private office to explain their illnesses and treatment, said Patty Gamble, Fuqua’s nurse for many years.

When patients came to him and said they couldn’t pay, he’d ask them to give him $5 a month. They could pay their full bills later, but if they coughed up just a little, he’d keep treating them. It showed they were trying.

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