Atlanta-Based Baptist Church Led by Jamal Bryant Opens Medical Clinic
The clinic is meant to offer needed healthcare to the surrounding community, but has no plans to dispense marijuana as Bryant suggested last year.
New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta has partnered with Community Healthcare of America (CHOA) to open a medical clinic on its campus.
The grand opening, held November 11, fulfills plans the church’s pastor Jamal Bryant announced in 2019. It is holding a series of soft launches over the next few weeks to make sure all the operations are in order and to evaluate the medical needs of the congregation and surrounding community.
The Jamal Bryant Center, which will officially open on December 1, will offer both primary and urgent care to the community. It will accept several forms of insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid.
“We’ll be able to do screenings, examinations, and X-rays. You won’t have to go to other places, you can do it right there. A full staff of certified board doctors and nurses,” Bryant said about the clinic named in his honor. “We’ll be open five days a week, Monday-Friday, and Saturday is the only day where an appointment is required.”
Bryant added that he believes this to be the only full care health clinic on a church campus in the state of Georgia.
“We are tremendously blessed by the overwhelming support and enthusiasm surrounding the Community Healthcare of America Clinic at New Birth,” Clinic Director Tony Safieh told the Christian Post. “Since the announcement, our phone lines have been abuzz with community members eager to access the enhanced health resources coming to South DeKalb County.”
In citing reasons for opening the clinic, Bryant pointed to health struggles within and lack of availability of quality health care for the black community.
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“You know, the African American community was inequitably impacted during the pandemic, from pre-existing conditions and so that clinic wants to contend with it head on,” Bryant said, adding that the clinic will serve the “entire community.”
In December 2022, in an interview with Rashan Ali, Bryant announced his plans to start raising and selling cannabis in an effort to bring in young black males to the church he leads.
Georgia passed a law in 2019 allowing the “regulated licensing of limited, in-state cultivation, production, manufacturing, and sale of low-THC oil as well as dispensing to registered patients on the state’s Low-THC Oil Registry.”
On an Instagram video, Bryant acknowledged his comments on Ali’s podcast had created controversy. He said legal cannabis is an $84 billion industry, the profits of which black people have been deprived.
Bryant mentioned his plans to open the medical clinic at the church, and cited medical benefits to hemp, including fighting illnesses like Alzheimer’s, depression, migraines, epilepsy, and others.
According to CHOA Corporate Director James Mola, there are no plans to dispense marijuana through the clinic at New Birth Missionary Baptist.
“We are a traditional medical clinic,” Mola told MinistryWatch. He said the clinic, which is owned by CHOA and housed at New Birth, provides a holistic approach in that it not only deals with patient’s medical needs, but partners with New Birth’s family life center trainers and nutritionists to provide guidance to patients regarding exercise and diet.
All CHOA clinics are located within large churches around the country.
Main photo: Jamal Bryant at the opening of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church’s new medical facility / Video screenshot
