From one office, one night per week to 24,000 patients per year; the OKC Indian Clinic celebrates 50 years

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – Carla Quillen-Crockett was still a teenager when she pulled up to a much smaller OKC Indian Clinic in 1989.

Through two children and the next few decades of life, she kept coming back for basic medical care.

The free medical care was one plus for sure.

She is on the Seminole Tribal Rolls, but she liked the staff too.

“The personal care they provide as well as the doctors,” she mentions.

It took a group of Methodist ministers to gather and ask another group of local physicians to volunteer their services and even some supplies to open the first City Indian Clinic in 1974.

Clinic CEO Robin Sunday-Allen explains, “To provide access to urban Indians, which means people who live off-reservation.”

Allen has been at the clinic long enough to marvel at her facility’s ‘underweight birth’ especially in light of how it’s grown over the past 50 years.

The clinic went from a one night per week office downtown, to this campus of office buildings, now the largest of its kind in the U.S.

“Current statistics tell us that close to 70% of Native Americans now live off their reservation in urban centers like Oklahoma City,” Allen said.

We took a full tour of the clinic for another story back in 2022.

previous

More Great State Stories

From one office, one night per week to 24,000 patients per year; the OKC Indian Clinic celebrates 50 years

A new mural on an old church in Tatums, OK

From Machine Shop to Museum in Durant, OK

Masks were a requirement then in the midst of the Covid pandemic.

Unfortunately, that was also right around the time Carla was home bingeing on Oreo cookies and turning a pre-diabetic condition into full blown Type 2.

She recalls when, “Covid hit and I was cramming cookies down my mouth. I was in panic mode.”

Her clinic doctors knew enough to offer her a choice between medication or diet and exercise.

“I chose exercise of course,” she smiles, “and that brought my levels down to normal.”

Carla’s health is still back on track in August 2024.

Allen now oversees multiple clinics that offer services far beyond family medicine.

The need, she argues, is still growing.

Those anemic first days are distant memories when looking at what’s happened in the last half-century.

That’s less that a lifetime, but equal to the task of saving lives.

The OKC Indian Clinic now provides free medical care to 24,000 Native American patients each year.

For more information go to okcic.com .

Great State is sponsored by Oklahoma Proton Center

Follow Galen’s Great State adventures on social media !

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.