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James Oxendine couldn’t afford — and hadn’t taken — his prescribed blood pressure medicine in years by the time Rhonda Caviness set up her office between the sanctuary and the fellowship hall at the Triad Native American United Methodist Church.

“Rhonda does a lot of talking for me,” said Oxendine, who hasn’t worked since 2001 and recently had quadruple heart-bypass surgery because of long-term health problems.

Caviness, the church’s congregational nurse, helped him make medical appointments and access medicine through HealthServe, the community health clinic. Even better, says Oxendine’s wife, April, the presence of Caviness, a registered nurse, has helped him change bad habits.

“After being around Rhonda so much, I gave up smoking and I try to eat better,” Oxendine said, as the music began to stream out of the sanctuary signaling the beginning of the weekly prayer meeting.

“She’s a godsend,” said April Oxendine.

Caviness is part of the Moses Cone Health System Congregational Nurse Program, which started with a handful of churches in 1999 and is now associated with 67 diverse congregations in the Greensboro area. The effort, in its 10th year, pairs nurses and faith communities to offer free health education, screenings and consultations.

The faith-based program grew in 2006 to include participation from UNCG and N.C. A&T in a first-in-the-nation venture pairing social work students with nurses.

Faith community or congregational nursing is recognized by the American Nursing Society as a specialty practice of nursing because the scope of practice includes the “intentional care of the spirit.”

“When you speak with folks concerning the congregational nurse ministry, they use the term 'holistic’ — ministering to an individual in body, mind and spirit,” said the Rev. John Mack, pastor of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church on Curtis Street, which has a nurse. “I believe it’s important because when someone is hurting physically, a lot of times, it will affect how they feel spiritually.”

Just last year, program nurses made more than 70 referrals for free mammograms to women who otherwise would not have been able to afford them, while providing more than 11,000 screenings for serious conditions such as diabetes. They also prevented at least 100 emergency room visits in 2007 and 2008.

“The program of today far exceeds anything that we could have imagined,” said Lelia Moore, the program’s coordinator.

It was launched locally by Moore and a group of other Moses Cone Hospital health professionals, based on a program begun years earlier in Chicago, which used a combination of paid staff and volunteers based in churches.

The local program got start-up grants from The Duke Endowment and The Moses Cone-Wesley Long Community Health Foundation.

Prevention is a major part of the program’s undergirding — “before those most at risk can come down with debilitating, chronic diseases,” Moore said.

The grant money allowed local congregations to hire a congregational nurse — 10 hours a week for a congregation of up to 300 members, for example.

Eventually, the churches take on greater percentages of the cost of the nurse, until the congregation covers 100 percent of the cost. These services often draw in people in the surrounding community as well.

“I had a young man who had seizures and just couldn’t afford his medicine, and I was able to go to his doctor and they were able to fill out some of the forms that the drug companies ask them to do (for free medicine),” said Joyce Greene, a retired public health nurse and part-time school nurse who serves as the congregational nurse at Shiloh Holiness Church of God in Christ on Vandalia Road.

“He’s been getting his medicine and taking it — which eliminates your ambulance visits to the emergency room and the trips to the doctor because the seizures aren’t controlled.”

But money can be an issue in keeping nurses.

“I’m not sure if my church can sustain the position after the grant is gone, but it’s been a real prayer concern for the minister and for me as well,” Greene said.

The grants allowed the program to target congregations, including the Native American church, whose community has a high incidence of diabetes and hypertension. The Rev. Delton Collins, pastor at the Native American church, told Caviness a year ago when he hired her that he was concerned about the health of his community. Collins died in December of a heart attack.

“Putting me right outside the sanctuary tells me he thought this was important,” Caviness said. “He wanted people to be conscious about the things they could control.”

Each week, Caviness pulls out her supplies and prepares for those who stop by after the midweek service, with anything from a question to a request to have her listen to a heartbeat.

Moses Cone also provides continuing education seminars and workshops for the nurses.

More recently, the program has moved toward a volunteer health coach program in partnership with the health department, using trained individuals in their own faith community. It might just get more congregations involved, Moore said.

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com