For years, until our own health prohibited it, my wife and I would drive to the Wise County Virginia Fairground to participate in the project as Lions. We work with vision clinics and eye screening as well as with new and recycled glasses. The experience was always both rewarding and heart-rendering. People in such drastic need getting free medical care. For most, it was the only care they got.
I always remember the irony as we arrived at Norton and saw many billboards advertising doctors and clinics in the area. I have known our health care system is broken since the 1960s but now the whole world finally knows.
Our Attorney General and Governor are there this year and here are some pictures.
Further irony can be had by reading about RAM on their web page. It starts with this statement from Stan Brock, the founder and President:
"My vision for Remote Area Medical® developed when I suffered a personal injury while living among the Wapishana Indians in Guyana, South America. I was isolated from medical care, which was about a 26 day journey away. I witnessed the near devastation of whole tribes by what would have been simple or minor illnesses to more advanced cultures. When I left Guyana, I vowed to find a way to deliver basic medical aid to people in the world’s inaccessible regions. So, in 1985 I established the non-profit, Remote Area Medical® or as most people know us - RAM®. RAM® is the way I have kept that promise, not only to the Wapishana Indians, but to thousands around the world in similar conditions. In other words, there are Wapishanas everywhere."
Yes, that is how it began. Read on below and find out why it now does more in the USA than abroad.
Here is a 60 Minutes story from 2008 that tells a lot.
This was RAM's 524th expedition. RAM took off in 1992, airlifting relief to Latin America. And at age 72, Stan Brock still flies the antique fleet. One of their planes, a C-47, flew on D-Day.
Brock is British by birth, and an adventurer at heart. He was a cowboy in the Amazon and then, incredibly, he was discovered by TV's "Wild Kingdom." Brock was a star - sort of a naturalist daredevil - for the program in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Today Brock is devoted to RAM - completely devoted. He has no family, takes no salary, and has no home. Brock lives in an abandoned school that the city of Knoxville leases to RAM for $1. Until recently, he took showers in the courtyard with a hose.
How does he pay for all the care and supplies?
"In the first place we really know how to stretch the dollar. We operate entirely on the generosity of the American people. I'd like to say that we had big corporate support in America but we don't. So it's the little checks from those people who send in the $5 and $10," Brock explained.
RAM operates on a shoestring budget of about $250,000 a year. Yet, last year, it treated 17,000 patients. On the Saturday 60 Minutes stopped by, there was no sign of a let up.
Here is the
2014 Remote Area Medical clinic schedule
RAM® is honored to offer free, quality healthcare services in the following communities through the gracious gifts of our investors and the local Community Host Groups, volunteers, healthcare professionals, and partners. RAM® has conducted over 700 mobile clinic events in over 540,000 patient encounters.
All RAM® clinics offer free dental, vision, general medical, prevention, and educational services unless otherwise indicated. If additional services are provided it will be listed on the specific dates. Parking lots open at 12 midnight with numbers given out at 3 a.m. RAM® mobile clinics are free, first come, first served events. No ID is required.
Here is a report on this years effort:
ALLIE ROBINSON GIBSON | BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
WISE, Va. — When she found the right pair of glasses, she knew. She smiled at herself in the mirror, thanked the volunteer who helped her pick them out, and moved on in line.
Eight months ago, Joann King wouldn’t have dreamed she’d be standing in line for hours to get a new pair of eyeglasses, and another line to be seen by a doctor.
All her life, she had insurance and regularly went to her physician for blood work and check-ups for her diverticulosis, which can flare up unexpectedly.
That all changed in December, when King lost her job — and her insurance. Unemployed, she couldn’t afford insurance through the Affordable Care Act, and she didn’t qualify yet for Medicaid nor was she old enough for Medicare.
Patients like King — thousands and thousands of them — are the reason the Remote Area Medical clinic is held in Wise County each year. The three-day event features free medical, dental and vision care for the uninsured, underinsured and working poor in the region, and about 3,000 patients attended last year.
“Today, I’m here to reassure my mind that I’m all right for now,” King said. “And hopefully I will be, until Medicare kicks in.”
She said she hasn’t had new eyeglasses in seven years, and hadn’t been to the doctor for blood work since December, when she lost her job.
On Friday, the first day of this year’s event, 1,500 tickets were given out to folks seeking vision and dental care by 4 a.m., said Teresa Gardner, executive director of The Health Wagon, the local organization that spearheads Wise’s RAM event.
As you can see the ACA may have helped lots of people but there are still so many more left out. State politics, whatever, still make our system far from what it should be. We have lots of work to do.