Meet our February Jersey Muslim of the Month: Dr. Jubril Oyeyemi!

By: Alaa Essafi

Meet Dr. Jubril Oyeyemi, a physician from Cherry Hill and founder of the Cherry Hill Free Clinic, who we are proud to announce as our February Jersey Muslim of the Month!

Born and raised in Nigeria, Dr. Oyeyemi moved to New Jersey in 2012 from Philadelphia after obtaining his medical degree from the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine. In 2017, Dr. Jubril presented the idea for a free clinic to the Gracious Center of Learning & Enrichment Activities (GCLEA) mosque board. The mosque hosts annual health fairs and pop-up events, often with the Red Cross, to educate the community about managing blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks, and more. 

“When we found this need for primary care for the uninsured, we presented it to the board of the mosque GCLEA, and it was met with a lot of enthusiasm. What I thought would be a makeshift, put dividers up, and just me coming in once a week, but the masjid said we’re going to do this right. All I did was assemble a team, alhamdulillah, over three years later, we served over 2,500 people, about 4,000 office visits, and countless labs,” he said. 

The clinic not only offers easy access to primary care for those that are uninsured; it also is a step towards addressing racial and economic inequities within healthcare. 

“There’s also a racial and socio-economic disparity with this issue, you know. Communities that are underrepresented suffer more from this issue of access to primary care, [including] immigrant folks, [and] brown people. So, it's nice to have a place to go and have care that’s not subpar in any way,” he said. 

“The clinic not only offers easy access to primary care for those that are uninsured; it also is a step towards addressing racial and economic inequities within healthcare. ”

Dr. Oyeyemi visits the clinic about three times a week both to see patients and fulfill his administrative duties. 

“My work at the free clinic has really been my passion project. The Muslim community has always had doctors, and we identified that some of our neighbors are uninsured and ending up in the ER with life-threatening, debilitating conditions because they didn’t have primary care. That was the spark to do this work,” he said. 

Four years later, the clinic has grown to a board of thirteen members from different faiths and backgrounds, four of which are Muslim. The clinic serves about 150 patients a month and is open 7-days a week. 

“The magic of the work is that it’s a great opportunity to share a tenet of our faith, which is charity and care for your neighbors, that’s one of the driving reasons for me and for the community. The other things that happened as a result of it, though it was born of the Muslim community, it is being embraced by all. There’s been a relationship forged with the local hospitals and Cherry Hill township, so there’s been a collaboration between the different facets of the community, whether it’s hospitals or local businesses.”

To learn more about how you can support the work of Dr. Jubril and the Cherry Hill Free Clinic please  click here!