The opportunity for an impromptu health checkup is too good to pass up, particularly when it’s free; it’s conveniently located nearby and it’s on a Saturday, when you may not have to take off work. That’s exactly why the Betty Jean Kerr People’s Health Centers (PHC) is driving health care right into St. Louis area neighborhoods this summer.
With a grant from the St. Louis Regional Health Commission, PHC refurbished an older van it owned into a mobile health clinic, complete with two exam rooms and a waiting room. When mobilized, the van has onsite doctors, dentists as well as mental health therapists from the Hopewell Center, for total health care.
“Our goal is to actually get out into the community; find the population that doesn’t necessarily get to health centers; the population that is uninsured, underinsured; and in fact, we want to go to the corners of the community that need help but are not represented,” Dwayne Butler, CEO of Betty Jean Kerr People’s Health Centers said. “When we get to them, we may only have one shot at them, so we really want to test and treat. We are doing a full sweep of tests beyond what you normally see at health fairs.”
PHC health records are totally electronic now –on the mobile unit it can create new patient records and retrieve those it already has on file.
If you don’t have insurance or are unable to pay, PHC will write you a coupon to come into one of its health centers if you need care beyond what they can provide at the mobile health events for free.
“If we find issues, we are also giving you a way to deal with those issues, which means, we are not even going to ask you for a co-pay. We are saying if there is an issue, we need to treat that,” Butler stressed. “We are not going to let money stop you from getting care when we are out in the community doing the work that we are doing.”
A couple of hundred people participated in the first big mobile event. Butler said dental work and behavioral health care were the two big needs they are seeing thus far.
“We had a number of people who ended up being at risk for depression and were able to speak to a therapist…to begin to deal with their depression to ultimately get through it,” Butler explained. “If we catch behavioral health issues, like depression, anxiety and ADD in children, we find that, on the other side of adolescence, they have a healthier adulthood.
“If we don’t catch those early, these are some of the children who act out in school,” Butler said. “Our community has not been very well educated in the symptoms of behavioral health.”
Butler said PHC asked New Northside Missionary Baptist Church to partner with them for three monthly “grand” health endeavors. The large scale events at New Northside include free healthy cooking demonstrations, haircuts, line dancing and entertainment, along with health preventive care and treatment.
“The church has always been a part of the solution when we deal with these issues,” “Butler said. “We have to commit to taking care of our folks. It is at great expense but it is great joy to serve. We will be out there, but it is our hope that this kind of changes the way we serve in our community.”
New Northside also sets up a prayer tent to attend to spiritual health needs. Bishop Willie J. Ellis, the pastor at New Northside, calls it a way to bring about a unity spirit of health and social relief.
“It is just one focus on how we can retrieve our community in the area of healthcare and try to remove some of the social stigmas that are plaguing our community – namely, bringing people to Christ and also trying to encourage them to be a part of the total community – looking at their health needs and social needs,” said Bishop Ellis. “The church is playing a vital role in this particular area to encourage a better relationship in our community…We will continue to dialog with people from all walks of life.”
Butler said PHC eventually wants to partner with other entities to provide “straight-through care” beyond what they can offer as a primary care provider.
The Peoples/Hopewell mobile health van is going to several locations in the St. Louis area in July and August – many of them are churches. Check the Calendar section of today’s Your Health Matters for additional mobile health event locations.
