Long lines as free health care offered in LA area

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Google/AP

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Though he'd waited since 3:25 a.m. to see a dentist, a smile graced the face of Arturo Castaneda on Tuesday afternoon as he leaned against his blind man's cane and waited for someone to pull his bothersome tooth.

Like hundreds of others who showed up in the pre-dawn hours for free health care at The Forum in Inglewood, the 50-year-old man was relieved that he would receive the care he needed. Eventually.

Though blind, Castaneda's wasted eyes flitted over the hundreds of doctors and nurses who had volunteered to provide free dentistry, medical exams and vision care to the 1,500 uninsured, underinsured, unemployed and needy patients.

"This is beautiful, very beautiful. A very beautiful service they are doing for these people," he said.

The Los Angeles event marks the first time Remote Area Medical has provided such medical care in a major urban area. The medical group typically serves patients in rural parts of the United States and travels to underdeveloped countries.


Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hJCl-XC_yWbjQQNpi584Ej1eKQIAD9A10U300

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Bless Stan Brock, Remote Medical and all the doctors, dentists, and other healthcare professionals for donating their time and Damn the Repukes and all others who have got theirs and chant the USA has the best healtcare system in the world. Bullshit - we have millions of citizens, many working poor and middle class who shouldn't have to depend on a charity meant to deliver health care to underdevoloped nations. Repuke & any Dem who refuses to deliver the public option should be hanging their heads in shame over this travesty.

[PeaceNikki]

1. Remote Area Medical group

They are seriously good folks who provide free medical care to desperate uninsured people in third-world hellholes like Calcutta and Kentucky... and Los Angeles.

Hats off to those fine folks. Here's a recent article that NPR did on them: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111676259&sc=fb&cc=fp - it's a sobering message of the state of health care in this country.

[Beaverhausen]

2. link to website of this group

http://www.ramusa.org/index.html

[RamboLiberal]

3. Stan Brock sure walks the walk

Saint Stan Brock: who are you?

In the US, Brock is remembered as the star of Wild Kingdom, a popular TV series about wildlife conservation that began in the late 1960s. Off the back of this, Brock starred in a few films in the 1970s that were low on plot but packed with animals. There are fading posters on the wall from Escape from Angola and Forgotten Wilderness. On this poster, Brock is pictured in a swamp wrestling a real anaconda. Also hanging on the wall is Brock’s tae-kwon-do black belt and several framed photographs — he looks more at ease in the ones with lion cubs than in those with humans. He was often referred to as “the original crocodile hunter”.

Forty years later, his adventurous spirit is still thriving. Part James Bond, part Gandhi, he moves with purposeful velocity. He seems incapable of wasting time. And because he has, as he says, “no dependants”, he is utterly, passionately committed to Ram. He needs very little. Brock sleeps on the floor on a mat, and his main companion is a stray dog, Rambeau, who is now blind. Until six months ago, the two of them showered outside in the courtyard with a hose, but when the temperatures dipped below freezing, ice cubes came out of the nozzle, so an indoor shower has been installed. There is no hot water? “No,” he says, recoiling. “Hot water is bad for you.” Brock does not take a salary and has no income. “I am here 365 days a year, all day, every year.” All of his money has gone into the organisation. He has no car, no house, no possessions, no bank account. He was sending in tax returns with “zero” under income for so long, the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) informed him it wasn’t necessary for him to file. “This is all I do. I do not need money. I had oatmeal to eat this morning and one of the volunteers brought the oatmeal.”

He laughingly admits he has taken a vow of poverty. He does not go to restaurants because he’s not able to pay the bill, and he doesn’t miss it. He lives on a diet of rice, beans, fruit and oatmeal, and only occasionally protein, such as a can of tuna. The only beverages he drinks are water and 100% fruit juice. He has never had a fizzy drink.

Every day, sometimes waking up at 4am, he does two hours of exercise — tae kwon do, 600 sit-ups, and running, but only on a soft surface. He will ride his bicycle out to the local airport or soccer field and run around on the grass.

Personal details are hard to pin down. There is brief mention of a marriage, which, he says protectively, “didn’t work out”. He has no children, and later I discover his marriage lasted for 12 years. His family is his work — and the volunteers he surrounds himself with. Twelve years ago the operation became so large and complicated that Brock had to begin paying some of the volunteers. Jean Jolly will be 74 in August and has been with Ram for the past 15 years. Her salary is about $1,000 a month, and since she retired in 2004 from work at Talbots, a retail-clothing store, she is now the full-time volunteer co-ordinator; the engine that keeps everything running smoothly.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/ariel_leve/article6015125.ece

[DebbieCDC]

4. Hey pukes wake-up call! Still think we don't need "reform"?

Oh, I forgot, it's just poor/brown people needing care waiting in these lines. Not good white 'merkans.

On edit: sp

[RamboLiberal]

7. When Remote Area Medical holds the clinics in Appalachia

It's a sea of mostly all white faces. The 60 Minutes report on one of their clinics there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9JmEHsCv4c

When asked who are these people one of the doctors says, "Working poor, middle of their lives, most with families, most not substance abusers, and employed without adequate health insurance."

[denverbill]

11. No. They will read the headline and think it's proof that socialized health care means long lines.

[Lagomorph]

12. You must have missed Tennesee...

3,000 people, mostly poor rural whites, waiting overnight. You missed a great opportunity to show you cared, not just another chance to throw out the "racist" label at anything right wing.

High ethics will win the battle, rather than low blows, which will prolong it. Play to win, not just for the perverted joy of fighting.

[RamboLiberal]

15. Lines in Sullivan County Virginia 2008

Article where I found the pics. http://www.sullivan-county.com/id5/ram2008.htm

[AlbertCat]

16. Notice how most of them look healthier than the HCR protesters!

These are obviously not a bunch of obese couch potatoes.

These free clinics and their staff and patients should be a major talking point/ visual at all Dem Town Halls and on the news.

[ScottLand]

5. Thanks for posting this.

This proves there's a need to reform health care.

[Soylent Brice]

6. sad state of affairs we live in.

good on them for bringing care to those in need.

[AllyCat]

8. Socialists!!

God bless 'em :)

[RamboLiberal]

9. Dems or some liberal organization should've made a commercial

Featuring film from these clinics, some of the patients speaking & Stan Brock - especially of the Applachia area clinics. Very stark proof how badly this health care system is broken.

[ipaint]

10. After seeing that how could anyone not demand

universal coverage (putting together the best of all successful systems) and equal healthcare for all (none of this tiered crap).

[vinylsolution]

13. Republicans would never understand....

.... basic human compassion such as this.

Bravo to all who gave their time and efforts!

[Vinca]

14. I suppose CNN was all over this story . . . after all,

they had quite a lengthy piece about a fellow dying from lack of health care in China.:sarcasm:

[Wednesdays]

17. K&R

:kick:

[fencesitter]

18. Thousands Line Up For Free Healthcare

Source: NYT

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — They came for new teeth mostly, but also for blood pressure checks, mammograms, immunizations and acupuncture for pain. Neighboring South Los Angeles is a place where health care is scarce, and so when it was offered nearby, word got around.

For the second day in a row, thousands of people lined up on Wednesday — starting after midnight and snaking into the early hours — for free dental, medical and vision services, courtesy of a nonprofit group that more typically provides mobile health care for the rural poor.

Like a giant MASH unit, the floor of the Forum, the arena where Madonna once played four sold-out shows, housed aisle upon aisle of dental chairs, where drilling, cleaning and extracting took place in the open. A few cushions were duct-taped to a folding table in a coat closet, an examining room where Dr. Eugene Taw, a volunteer, saw patients.

When Remote Area Medical, the Tennessee-based organization running the event, decided to try its hand at large urban medical services, its principals thought Los Angeles would be a good place to start. But they were far from prepared for the outpouring of need. Set up for eight days of care, the group was already overwhelmed on the first day after allowing 1,500 people through the door, nearly 500 of whom had still not been served by day’s end and had to return in the wee hours Wednesday morning...........


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/health/13clinic.html

[Buzz Clik]

19. Any talk of knuckledraggers calling these people socialists? Telling them to go home and die?

[Cronus Protagonist]

20. Welcome to the best health care in the world

This third world country knows how to make it happen! GO USA!!

[Hulk]

23. Yeah...."we're #1"......

We are SERIOUSLY so close to a third world country, it isn't even funny. I know the right wing nut cakes would go ballistic with that statement.....but honestly, it's TRUE. Some parts of this country are WORSE even.

[monmouth]

21. Just like a third world country...Hope this is all over the media...n/t

[boobooday]

22. Everybody who needs health care in this country gets it!

Yeah right.