150 years without a hospital. A life-expectancy gap of up to 15 years.
That was the reality in West Louisville, where residents had clinics and health centers but no hospital, no specialists, and no 24-hour care.
People there face higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, and vascular disease. Women of childbearing age die at higher rates.
Corenza Townsend, LPN, believed that could change.
Corenza began her nursing career as an LPN at 19 and later moved into management and operations.
She spent much of her career caring for people and advocating for her community. In 2016, she and her colleagues began pushing to bring a hospital to West Louisville.
"I didn't think it would happen in my lifetime," Corenza admitted.
Corenza Townsend
Today, Corenza is Chief Administrative Officer of Norton West Louisville Hospital. The hospital is part of a broader effort to bring healthcare, resources, and opportunity to a community that has historically seen less investment.
It started with an idea called Unity Jam, an event created it to connect community members with healthcare resources. But Corenza had an idea for something bigger: a pitch to build a hospital in West Louisville.
To move their idea forward, Corenza and her colleagues approached Norton Healthcare President and CEO Russ Cox at a conference. They caught him outside a bathroom and delivered what Corenza describes as an informal elevator pitch about what a hospital would mean for West Louisville.
They had a meeting scheduled with Russ within a week.
Before construction began, the team engaged the community through more than 2,000 touchpoints, including events, listening sessions, community meetings, and surveys. Residents influenced everything from which services would be offered to the building layout, artwork, lighting, green spaces, and wayfinding signage.
The goal was not to build a hospital and then tell the community how to use it. It was to involve the community in its own healthcare.
Melinda "Mel" Ruberg, MD, Medical Director of Norton West Louisville, says that philosophy continues today.
"If [the hospital offers] services that the community does not need, then that doesn't really serve a purpose. From the beginning of this hospital, the goal was to listen to the community and find out what they need and what we can do to serve them instead of saying, 'This is what we're offering,'" she said.
Corenza knows that more goes into a person's health than access to healthcare. That's why Norton West Louisville was designed as a "hospital with no walls."
"That means that we're taking care of the whole person, not just your ailment at the time. How do we treat you from a preventative standpoint and how do we make sure that you have other resources that you need, especially from a social economics standpoint?" Corenza explained.
That philosophy shows up in the hospital's food pantry, care-management services, social workers, and connections to housing and mental health resources.
Charles Ramsey, a lifelong West Louisville resident and Case Manager at the hospital, runs the food pantry. In his role, he sees why treating a person's medical condition is often only part of the solution.
If someone has high blood pressure but goes home to an empty refrigerator, medication may address the immediate problem without addressing the other circumstances affecting their health.
Charles finds that a simple conversation can reveal a lot about someone's home life. Everyday interactions can become a pathway to primary care and other services.
A young woman named Jamie came to the food pantry experiencing food insecurity. After multiple conversations with Charles, she eventually got a job at the hospital and began studying to become a nurse.
No one could have predicted that transformation from their first conversation, but Charles believes change starts with one person.
For some patients, being heard makes all the difference.
Mahki Taylor spent 15 months searching for answers to severe, unexplained pain.
He and his mother visited doctor after doctor. He traveled to different cities looking for answers. As the pain worsened, he became increasingly immobile and eventually could no longer take part in activities he enjoyed.
He remembers feeling "unnoticed and unheard."
Some doctors told him he was too young to be in the amount of pain he described. Eventually, he began losing hope that he would ever find an explanation.
Then, he came to Norton West Louisville.
During one appointment with Mel, Mahki was in tears from the pain. Mel told him he would not have to keep going through this, and she eventually diagnosed him with Crohn's disease. Treatment put him on a path toward remission and allowed him to return to his normal life.
"They made me feel like I mattered," Mahki said.
Mel says Mahki's experience shows what can happen when patients have enough time with their clinicians. At Norton West Louisville, primary-care appointments are intentionally longer – 30 minutes instead of 15 – to create more time to build relationships.
That commitment to listening comes from the top. Corenza's path from bedside nurse to executive gave her an understanding of the barriers people face and the importance of listening before trying to solve a problem.
"Corenza has this incredible ability to still sit and listen to patients. She is an executive that can walk the executive walk, but she still sits down and listens," Mel said.
Corenza wants patients to find a healthcare environment that feels welcoming, not intimidating. She wants people to leave with answers or, at least, with someone committed to finding them.
She also believes representation matters. The hospital includes original artwork by Louisville-area artists. Community members and Norton employees signed structural beams that were built into the building. These details remind everyone that the hospital belongs to the community it serves.
Jimmy Cadet, Administrative Assistant at the Kentucky College of Barbering, has lived in West Louisville for three years. He sees the hospital as part of a larger network of investment that includes workforce development, financial literacy, trade education, entrepreneurship, and other community resources.
"Once you invest in the people, they don't just survive, they thrive," Jimmy said.
Charles says that investment is becoming visible. He has watched new houses go up and seen other signs of investment in West Louisville that he says he had not seen in more than 20 years.
Corenza knows that one hospital cannot erase 150 years of limited access or close a 15-year life-expectancy gap on its own. So, she is already looking toward what's next: developing the next generation of nurses and healthcare professionals to carry the work forward.
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