Dr. Tochi Amagwula-Keeton opened her Healthwise Wellness clinic on Old Warren Road almost two years ago, but she’s prescribing another type of medicine — naturally grown, that is — thanks to a Food Farmacy.
Amagwula-Keeton is distributing fresh produce grown in Jefferson County and southeast Arkansas as part of the initiative created by Communities Unlimited. The Fayetteville-based nonprofit provides the 12-week Food Farmacy to Pine Bluff area residents as a pilot program thanks to funding from the Arkansas Community Foundation.
“They needed a healthcare site to really identify a population that may benefit from that, and that’s why they picked us,” Amagwula-Keeton said of Communities Unlimited. “It fits into our whole-person treatment model.”
Brenda Williams is the coordinator of Communities Unlimited’s healthy foods initiative, which serves to increase access to healthy foods and local produce. The initiative mainly serves communities in Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi, with a focus on low-income and rural communities.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“We work under the term ‘Food is medicine,'” Williams said. “We look at that as an intervention.”
Amagwula-Keeton, a Houston native and Prairie View A&M-educated doctor, opened her membership-based clinic in September 2022, although patients can be seen for other programs including the Arkansas Department of Health’s BreastCare program.
“We see patients who are suffering from obesity. With that, they may be suffering from high cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure — all those things that can go along with that,” Amagwula-Keeton said. “I find that, for me, practicing in a traditional model, it wasn’t enough just to give prescriptions for whatever their health issues were. I really just wanted to be able to identify, what are those barriers to healthcare? Why is it that when I give Ms. Jones a prescription for this medication, she comes back to me six weeks later and her condition hasn’t improved? It’s likely because Ms. Jones might have a fear for the medication I give, or a fear or distress for the healthcare system.”
In some cases, the lack of access to nutritious foods leads to health challenges Amagwula-Keeton helps her patients fight. Providing boxes of fresh produce, she said, helps to “close the loop” between patients and access to nutrition.
Each box includes an assortment of fruits, vegetables and fresh eggs from minority farmers throughout southeast Arkansas. Burthel Thomas, who farms north of Altheimer, brought the boxes, including his Blackjack melons, which are hybrid seedless fruit. Thomas said he breeds his own fruit using bumblebees and honeybees as pollinators.
“It may be easier to get processed foods, so if I really want to just tell patients, ‘Hey, you should do this,’ there are programs like (Food Farmacy) that can assist in meeting those goals,” Amagwula-Keeton said. “I want to be able to provide that.”
The program, which began Wednesday, is open to members of Healthwise Wellness and citizens of the Pine Bluff area. Details: Call Healthwise Wellness at (870) 454-4354.
Dr. Tochi Amagwula-Keeton (Pine Bluff Commercial/I.C. Murrell)
Jefferson County farmer Burthel Thomas carries a box of fresh produce for Toni Watley to her vehicle Wednesday, July 17, 2024, from Healthwise Wellness on Old Warren Road. (Pine Bluff Commercial/I.C. Murrell)