Wilmington Rotary Club

Clippings from a special newspaper section commemorating the Wilmington
Rotary Club’s 61st anniversary in 1976 featured Orthopedic Clinic patient John
Stubbs, left, with nurse daphne Jeffords. At the time, 11 doctors were donating
their services and the clinic operated twice a month.
Rotary Focus
Disease prevention and treatment
Our members educate and mobilize communities
to help prevent the spread of major
diseases such as polio, HIV/AIDS, and malaria.
Many of our projects ensure that medical
training facilities are located where the
workforce lives. Rotarians work to prevent
disease and promote health by:
1. Improving the capacity of local health
care professionals.
2. Promoting disease prevention programs,
with the goal of limiting the spread
of communicable diseases and reducing the
incidence of and complications from noncommunicable
diseases.
3. Enhancing the health infrastructure of
local communities.
4. Educating and mobilizing communities
to help prevent the spread of major diseases.
5. Preventing physical disability resulting
from disease or injury.
6. Supporting studies for career-minded
professionals related to disease prevention
and treatment.
Mary Ammons, who had been a clinic patient since the age of 6, returned to work
as a volunteer. From ‘Hanover Sun,’ February 25, 1976.
the Orthopedic Clinic. The scourge of polio that had crippled
so many, especially in the late 1940s and early 1950s, mercifully
had been defeated by the vaccines developed by Dr.
Jonas Salk and later Dr. Alfred Sabin. Rotary, of course, has
long been a key part of the worldwide effort to eliminate this
plague in every country of the globe.
By the late 1990s, the clinic’s focus had narrowed to
patients under 21, most of them with birth defects. Six doctors
were seeing 30 to 50 children a month.
Today the state-run Medicaid program provides support
for some—mostly children and disabled adults. Floyd notes
that the advent of Medicaid permitted doctors to see those
patients in their offices for the first time, rather than in a
clinic. And of course Medicaid has taken over the budgeted
and voluntary contributions for those patients that long distinguished
the Wilmington Rotary Club’s support.
James Walker Memorial Hospital, site of the clinic for
many years, is no more, its role taken over by New Hanover
Memorial Hospital—now New Hanover Regional Medical
Center—in 1967. “That was a big day in Wilmington,” when
the new hospital opened, Floyd recalls. The hospital’s orthopedic
services provide local surgeons and other skilled professionals
the opportunity to serve on a scale that the clinic’s
founders could hardly have imagined.
It officially ceased operating in 2003, more than 80
years after it was first envisioned by Rotary, leaving a profound
legacy of hope and service.
But those early Rotarians’ vision has not disappeared.
Rotarians were there when no one else was. Through their
work, thousands of area residents found comfort, relief and
an opportunity to overcome obstacles in their lives—a living
legacy of Service Above Self.
14 Wilmington Rotary Club: 100 Years of Service Above Self