Patients Without Borders - Third World Mobile Medical Teams (in the USA)

[SOS]

From The New York Times Magazine (edit) - Sunday 11/18/07:

"Long before the dentists and the doctors got there, the people who needed them showed up to wait. It was 3 a.m. at the Wise County Fairgrounds in Virginia — Friday, July 20, 2007 — the start of a rainy Appalachian morning. Outside the gates, people lay in their trucks or in tents pitched along the grassy parking lot, waiting for their chance to have their medical needs treated at no charge — part of an annual three-day “expedition” led by a volunteer medical relief corps called Remote Area Medical.

The group, most often referred to as RAM, has sent health expeditions to countries like Guyana, India, Tanzania and Haiti, but increasingly its work is in the United States, where 47 million people — more than 15 percent of the population — live without health insurance.

And so each summer, shortly after the Virginia-Kentucky District Fair wraps up at the fairgrounds, members of Virginia Lions Clubs start bleaching the premises, readying them for RAM’s volunteers, who, working in animal stalls and beneath makeshift tents, provide everything from teeth cleaning and free eyeglasses to radiology and minor surgery. The problem, says RAM’s founder, Stan Brock, is always in the numbers, with the patients’ needs far outstripping what his team can supply. In Wise County, when the sun rose and the fairground gates opened at 5:30 on Friday morning, more than 800 people already were waiting in line. Over the next three days, some 2,500 patients would receive care, but at least several hundred, Brock estimates, would be turned away."


Patients receiving free outdoor medical care at the Wise County Fairgrounds in Virginia

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18healthcare-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin

Medicare for All.
Enough already.

[Vinca]

1. American citizens receiving charity medical care in fairground animal stalls.

There are so many things to be ashamed of about this country right now. Add this to the list. (And the Republican response: But, but, but . . . in Canada they might have to wait.)