Creating New Energy in Health Care
Creating New Energy in Health Care
The new Alabama Power Foundation Nursing Clinic is bringing creative energy to the Health and Clinical Services division of AIDB.
“Our new Alabama Power Foundation Nursing Clinic has improved accessibility to healthcare for students and improved the functionality for our staff,” said AIDB President Dr. John Mascia. “There’s a new examination area and a more effective system for monitoring patients. Private gifts to the AIDB Foundation made this project a reality, and we are very grateful to all of our donors, and especially to our lead contributors – Alabama Power Foundation, Daniel Foundation of Alabama and East Alabama Medical Center.”
In the winter of 1925, an influenza epidemic gripped the local community with ninety percent of the students and almost all of the faculty and staff of the Alabama School for the Blind contracting influenza. When the siege was finally over, a teacher and five students had died emphasizing the need for full-time medical care for students.
The following year, AIDB hired its first nurse and soon after, the Dowling Hospital was built to include full-time nursing care and clinics. AIDB’s modern-day Health and Clinical Services division provides around-the-clock medical care as well as comprehensive programs that make health and wellness a priority for students and consumers.
Education, counseling, therapy, clinics and nursing all play a role in healthy lifestyle management, enabling our students and consumers to become all that they can be – limitless! Partnerships are at the heart of this success. Beginning with local medical professionals, the team includes unique long-time relationships with the University of Alabama at Birmingham and others.
At the clinic’s dedication, Dr. Mascia remarked that it was significant to note that on that day in 1868, the Institute acknowledged its first official philanthropic gift from Dorothea L. Dix, who served as Superintendent of U. S. Army Nursing during the Civil War. “Today, we are grateful for the gifts through the AIDB Foundation that made this new facility possible,” said Dr. Mascia. “To our philanthropic partners - your investment of time and resources truly is making a difference and you’ve become a part of something very special,” said Fred McCallum, past president of the AIDB Foundation Board of Directors. “This new Nursing Clinic will literally touch the lives of thousands of deaf and blind children and adults across this state.”
Donors to the clinic include: Alabama Power Foundation; Daniel Foundation of Alabama; East Alabama Medical Center; The Caring Foundation of BCBS of Alabama; Protective Life Foundation; Parker Griffith Family Foundation; Hill Crest Foundation; Honda Manufacturing of Alabama, LLC; Stanley E. Adams; Joel R. Anderson Family Foundation; Bank Independent; Anita Brown; Terry Dunn; Representative Steve Hurst; John Jones; Jerry Thomas; Jerome S. Leader; Mayer and Arlene Mitchell Charitable Foundation; Elizabeth A. Ponder; Reese Phifer, Jr. Memorial Trust Foundation; Edward
Robbins; H.G. and H.U. Sims Foundation; Vowell and Associates.
The Alabama Power Foundation Nursing Clinic
For over 30 years the Alabama Power Foundation has partnered with the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind Foundation to ‘do something good together.’ The impact of this investment is evident in AIDB’s education, outreach, health, technology, student life and learning resource programs. The Alabama Power Foundation Nursing Clinic is dedicated to deaf and blind children and adults and their limitless quest to develop a healthy mind, body and spirit.