Baylor Health Care System to Transform South Dallas Recreation Center into New Diabetes Institute

Baylor Health Care System is reaching out to the neighborhood, transforming the Juanita J. Craft Recreation center into the areas first and only diabetes health and wellness institute. Baylor will invest $15 million in the project with the mission of saving lives through improved diabetes care, education and research. The new institute is expected to open in Spring 2010. Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert will help break ground on the new facility, expected to serve as a new possible model for the diabetes-care nationwide. South Dallas residents are 30 percent more likely to be admitted to a hospital due to diabetes or a diabetes-related condition than other city residents. In fact by 2010, 13 percent of those living in South Dallas will be diabetic.