Health Center Celebrates 50th Anniversary

Lyons Avenue Health Center, the first city of Houston clinic, celebrated its 50th anniversary in November. And just in time, the center is getting a gift to help it grow.

An expansion project set to begin early next year will provide the health center with an additional 3,200 square-feet of space, remodeled service areas and the ability to increase its current patient average of 1,600 per month.

Although Lyons opened its doors at its current site in the Fifth Ward at the corner of Lyons Avenue and Lockwood Drive in 1951, the health center actually began providing services two years earlier at Julia C. Hester House, a local community center. City health services prior to 1949 were provided from City Hall and the old Jefferson Davis Hospital.

Lyons was the first city clinic and preventive health care facility intended to serve the residents of Fifth Ward and Denver Harbor, communities predominantly African-American and Hispanic respectively.

Remembering Lyons’ early days always compels area residents to think about immunizations, said registered nurse Gloria McNeil, the center’s administration manager for the last 20 years.

"Immunizations are a reference point for the community," she said. "The residents say we literally had immunization lines around the entire building and down the street. They always talk about their shots. Sure, if you get specific and ask more in-depth questions, they talk about our other services, but immunizations defined Lyons."

Well-child and maternity were the other services offered when Lyons opened.

By the mid 1960s, additional programs established by the Houston Department of Health and Human Services at Lyons also addressed health concerns related to tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases and dental care. The facility, expanded to 17,780 square-feet in 1976, for a time also housed the department’s Consumer Health (food inspection services), the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program and Environmental Health Services.

Today, aside from the three initial services and those added in the 1960s, preventive health care at Lyons also encompasses family planning, prenatal check-ups, pregnancy testing, pap smears, nutrition, health education, speech and hearing services, as well as newborn, lead, vision and blood pressure screenings. A similar scope of service is offered by the department’s six other health centers.

Next year’s expansion project calls for remodeling of the TB Clinic, doubling the size of the Medical Records area, enlarging the STD Clinic, separating Immunizations and Family Planning to give each their own areas, adding a new employee lounge and building a 100-seat auditorium with its own public entrance. Lyons will also get landscaping, exterior benches and tables, a new parking lot on the west side of the building and directional signs that will be uniform throughout the health center.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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