I am pleased to announce that Remote Area Medical mission will be doing a free health fair in Washington DC, at the DC Convention Center location not yet certain. RAM received its certificate of need from the Washington D C State Health Planning and Development Agency of the Department of Health.
RAM will arrive during the afternoon of Wednesday January 21, and will be providing services Thursday Jan 22 through Sat. Jan 24 dates are correct, days are Thursday thru Sunday, with the doors opening each of those days at 5 AM.
The event is not yet on the calendar at RAM's website. My information is directly from Jean Jolly, director of volunteers at RAM, who welcomes those who want to volunteer.
Please come below the fold while I explain some more.
UPDATE - location NOT yet fixed. Just got an email from RAM. And waiting for final approval from DC before posting it on website. Just spoke with Stan Brock at 11:30 AM on Friday. See update at end.
I have twice volunteered at events co-sponsored by RAM and by Missions of Mercy of the Virginia Dental Foundation. My own volunteering has been through Missions of Mercy, but during my two stints, In Wise VA in July, and in Grundy VA in October, I spent some time talking with some of the key figures of RAM: Stan Brock, who founded RAM, and Jean Jolly, director of volunteers.
After my first day of volunteering at Wise - something that came out of my participation in my Political Leaders Program at the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia - I wrote A different perspective on the health care debate. That was the first of a series of diaries flowing from that weekend. A number of people in that first diary, and in the subsequent diaries I wrote about volunteering, asked about bringing something like that to DC. Now that hope is being fulfilled.
We may hope that health care will be done by the fourth weekend in January. I think it quite possible that either health care reform will not be done, or whatever has been passed will still need major changes.
I intend to lobby every member of Congress I know to travel the 22 some odd blocks East from the Capitol to the Armory whatever location it is. They will be welcome guests. And they can see first hand what I encountered in Appalachia, because the need for health and dental care is just as severe in our major cities as it is in our rural areas. Oh, it might be easier to get to an emergency room in a real crisis, and there are more free clinics, and one might be able to get to them by public transportation. But too many people are still not receiving even the basic medical and dental care that should be everyone's right.
This is not a particularly well organize diary. I don't care. I have been waiting for the confirmation of the dates from Jean to post this, and I wanted to get the word out.
In the comments there will be links for RAM's web page, where you can contribute or volunteer, for my other previous diaries on this subject, and for those who want to directly contact Jean Jolly, director of volunteers, in order to help.
For now, I wanted people to know, and if possible, to think about helping.
Anything we can do to make those in Congress - and in the media - realize how important it is to get health care right.
Peace.
UPDATE 12/18 at 11:30 AM: Just got off the phone with Stan Brock. Still negotiating on location. The date is still, tentatively, the 22-24, which are Fri-Sat-Sun, with setup on Thursday the 21st. That could slip, because there is still apparently one issue to resolve with DC government. I will remain in touch with RAM in order to keep people here informed.