Still going strong, still saving lives: Jimmy Carter helps open newly remodeled clinic

PLAINS, Ga. — Access to health care is a serious problem across parts of rural Georgia and former President Jimmy Carter is making it a top priority to change that.

Carter, and wife Rosalynn, dedicated a new medical clinic in his hometown of Plains on Wednesday.

Channel 2’s Berndt Petersen learned that Carter got the ball rolling on the new clinic with just a phone call and email.

The former president said Wednesday that there needs to be a network of clinics all across rural Georgia.

"When I was a child, Plains, Georgia, was a key medical center. I would not be born ... (I’m the) first president born in a hospital, by the way," Carter said.

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A lot has changed since Carter’s birth in the 1920s.

Last spring, the town's only remaining clinic lost its doctor and closed.

The former president asked the Mercer University School of Medicine to find a physician.

When President Carter talks, people still listen.

"President Carter is very patient, y'all. I told him I'd work on it. Ten days later, he sent me an email asking me where that doctor was," Mercer University President William Underwood said.

In a matter of weeks, Mercer remodeled the building, installed state-of-the-art equipment and staffed it with a doctor, nurse and school of medicine faculty and students.

"The health of West Georgia citizens still continues to be amongs the worst in the state. I really believe we can do better,” medical student Taylor Hollingsworth told Petersen.

Carter said elected officials under the Gold Dome in Atlanta need to make it a priority. And at the age of 93, he can still stick that jab.

"Everybody in rural areas knows about this. Sometimes the big shots that get elected don't remember how the people feel before they're elected," Carter said.

Cox Media Group