IT IS SUCH A PLEASURE AND BLESSING TO INTRODUCE to you the medical ministry of Rosemary Zimmerman! Rosemary is a hospitalist at Elllis Hospital in Schenectady, New York. As a hospitalist, she takes the place of a primary care doctor during a hospital stay and specializes in taking care of patients who are acutely sick or medically complicated. Her work has brought her face to face with the heartbreaking ways that indigent, medically fragile people fall through the cracks of our medical system. They are discharged from hospitals with no way to access the follow up care that is a lifesaving necessity.

For instance . . .

• A surgery patient is released from the hospital needing the usual post-surgery care. But they have no home or resources to complete the normal healing process.
• A young man—developmentally disabled, homeless and illiterate—had a medical condition causing severe, uncontrollable and near constant diarrhea. He required adult diapers to manage this, which naturally he could neither afford nor obtain. The predictable results meant that he was tossed out of every living arrangement ever offered him and he could not use public transit to get to medical appointments.
• A quadriplegic who required long-term tube feeds was hospitalized when she lost access to food. No one was willing to take on the management of the feed tubes at home.
• An elderly immigrant developed a severe condition requiring medical care—and then fell and broke her knee which required extensive recovery. Her family was devoted to her, but totally unable to afford the vast costs of her out-of-pocket medical care.

Driven by her faith . . .

Rosemary has had a desire since childhood to medically serve the poor like these. She became a Nurse Practitioner so that she would incur less debt and be more flexible to serve while having the benefit of being licensed to practice independently in private practice. As her calling became more clear, a concrete plan began to take shape. She envisioned opening a very small, independent—and most importantly free—primary medical practice focusing on the need of the highly medically complicated indigent poor. And since these folks struggle with transportation, she would only make “house calls”—in shelters, in long-term-stay hotels, on the street, in homes where home health care declines to go. Her practice would not have a clinic space and the overhead that entails, but rather be modest in scope and mobile in delivery. Buoyed by the positive response by her hospital colleagues, she has laid the groundwork for collaboration with the hospital for referrals as case managers arrange a patient’s discharge. They affirmed both the need and practicality for such a service; and Rosemary is uniquely suited to the meet these needs

Once when Rosemary apologized to the sister of a patient for being unable to help, the patient’s sister told her, “you gave him what almost no one ever else has. When you looked at him, I could tell that you didn’t see his illness; you saw my brother, my sweet brother I love. He was a person to you. You gave him everything that matters.”

And as Rosemary says it . . .

“‘There’s the God thing.’ That’s why I see what I want to do not only as a medical practice—though surely it’s that and practical help matters—but as a ministry. Because if God has given me one gift of His Spirit, it is the ability to look at the absolute ‘least of these’—the ones who are ‘addicts’ or ‘should be on hospice’ or ‘shouldn’t be here in the first place’ and see the Beloved.”

It was also clear to GOOD NEWS Associates that this was a ministry that we wanted to support and make possible! While Rosemary will continue to be a hospitalist for her primary salary, she will need ongoing financial support for supplies, equipment and logistics of providing this kind of care.

Funds that are needed for starting and sustaining this free care, home visit clinic will come from donations to Good News Associates for Rosemary Zimmerman Ministry. Perhaps the easiest way for you to add your support is go to the GOOD NEWS Associates donate page to make your contribution. Or you can make a check payable to: GOOD NEWS Associates, 20403 Crawford Road, Lynnwood, WA 98036. In the memo line indicate that your gift is for Rosemary Zimmerman Ministries.