I decided to take the twenty minute drive down to the Oakland Coliseum today to see what I could see. This last weekend, today, and tomorrow, Remote Area Medical is holding a free health care clinic there -- first come, first served.
I didn't see any doctors, or nurses, or patients getting treated. Actualy, they wouldn't let me in -- despite my attempts to convince them I write blog posts about their work (e.g, here and here). Oh well, I knew that was a possibility, even likely. It's not like I'm Barbara Lee.
(the tv station seems to have replaced the video I was originally linking to with this one, which is still a good one)
What I did see, however, was both heart-rending and depressing. They were not accepting any more patients by the time I arrived, but in the parking area a line had already gathered for tomorrow. That's right, long before 3:30 PM a line had formed, people waiting to get tickets that wouldn't be handed out until very early the next morning.
Some people with foresight had brought chairs (there was even a tent pitched!) but most were just standing there. It was a bit chilly for Oakland, CA in April, and the wind was blowing, but no one was uncomfortable in the afternoon sun. Still, all I could think of was the coming night. No one was going to freeze to death (a 41 degree fahreneit forecast), but it was not going to be pleasant.
A family was in that line -- two parents and two children who couldn't have been older than three or four. I have no idea how they expected to manage for fifteen more hours with no obvious shelter or place to sleep for their kids. Yet there they were. Refugee from an economic disaster brought about by an elite who have lost nothing but their consciences.
I talked with one woman waiting. She had gotten in line hours ago. She lost her only contract two weeks ago and was out of work; essentially self-employed, she had no unemployment check to look forward to. She hadn't seen a dentist in twenty years, and she had had to cancel her 'junk' health insurance a while ago because the premiums had become unmanageable. I let her know that San Francisco has free health care clinics, if she continued to need assistance beyond today. She had no idea.
There have been 640 Free Health Clinics administered by RAM. Through all those 640, exactly three Congresspeople have visited. I'm proud mine was one of them, but I'm ashamed that she had to do so to call attention to problems that should not still exist in a civilized society, but do in ours.