History
In 1972, Dr. John H. Jones founded the Davis Free Clinic, bringing to Yolo County his vision and philosophy of offering high quality, affordable health care services to those who traditionally did not have access to health care.
Dr. Jones grew up in Piggott, Arkansas, where his father, also a doctor, often received chickens or other food instead of money for his services. Dr. Jones came to Davis to work in a local family practice group and eventually became a provider at the UC Davis Cowell Student Health Center. During the day, he worked at the Student Health Center and at night, he volunteered at the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic in San Francisco, treating those with addictions and sexually transmitted diseases.
Dr. Jones was quick to notice that the city of Davis also had a population of people with drug addictions who had no insurance to cover care for a variety of health problems. Dr. Jones opened the Davis Free Clinic at the Friends Meeting House of Davis at 345 L Street. Dr. Jones also visited farm labor camps and other encampments using a converted milk-delivery truck as a mobile clinic. Eventually, the Davis Free Clinic moved to a house on 4th Street in downtown Davis and continued to expand its reach.
In addition to general medicine, in 1973, the Davis Free Clinic established a women’s health program and also began to offer substance abuse treatment services. A perinatal program was added in 1980 and a pediatric program started treating children in the area in 1984. In 1990, a
dental program was added to the clinic’s growing list of services.
In 1985, the Clinic moved into another downtown building, sharing
the old Safeway site with the Davis Food Co-Op. That facility was
designed to handle approximately 10,000 patient visits per year. When
patient visits totaled over 30,000 per year in this facility, the Board
of Directors of the Clinic turned to our community for support to build
the new Davis Community Clinic at 2040 Sutter Place. The community
response was overwhelming and, as predicted, patient visits continued
to climb significantly.
In 1994, the Davis Community Clinic again responded to growing
community needs by joining with Sutter Davis Hospital, Sutter West
Medical Group, and the Yolo County Health Department to form the Yolo
Health Alliance. This resulted in an expansion of services and number
of sites to care for the indigent population of Yolo County. At the
same time, the name “CommuniCare Health Centers” was adopted to
describe the family of health centers that include the Davis Community Clinic, Peterson Clinic in Woodland, Salud Clinic in West Sacramento
and the Esparto Dental Clinic. An additional two clinics, the John H.
Jones Community Clinics in West Sacramento and Woodland bear the name
of our founder and offer substance abuse treatment to those in need,
just as Dr. Jones had envisioned. In 2003, our Knights Landing clinic opened at the Knights Landing Family Resource Center (now the Juana
Mendoza Building) to serve the residents of the rural northern portion
of the county. Today, we continue to add services as the need for
comprehensive services for the low-income and uninsured continues to
grow. This includes our Chronic Disease Management program and our
community outreach and health education services (which encompasses our
Community Health Education and Outreach Program, teen services, and HIV Case Management services).
Following the lead of Dr. Jones, we continue to strive to improve
the availability and accessibility of health care services for those in
need. We are committed to providing patient-centered health care with
an emphasis on culturally competent services, emphasizing preventive
care, and responding to the needs of the communities we serve.
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