The Duke Remote Area Medical (RAM) clinic held recently in Henderson was a roaring success and organizers want to make the free pop-up medical clinic at least an annual event.
According to follow-up information received from one of the Duke University students that helped organize the event held May 14-15 at Vance Charter School, the clinic saw 150 different patients and provided close to $150,000 in free medical, dental and vision care over the course of the two-day clinic.
“Sadly, demand for the services was so high that we had to start turning people away at 7 a.m. on Saturday and 5 a.m. on Sunday,” said Avni Charvu, who will team up with Saajan Patel to be the lead organizers for next year’s clinic.
The goal , Charvu said, is to learn from this first experience to make the clinic an annual event, working up to multiple Duke RAM clinics a year. This year’s lead organizers Rishi Dasgupta and Rishabh Jain graduated last month, and Charvu said he and Patel are already making plans for next year’s Henderson clinic,
“For each patient we were able to serve, there were scores more who would have benefited and couldn’t be seen…We enlisted local nonprofits to distribute free Narcan, sexual health products, dental care product and more,” Charvu said.
The NC Navigator Consortium was also helping under- and uninsured patients sign up for Medicaid. For patients who were diagnosed with longer-term chronic conditions or may require emergency care in the coming days after surgical procedures, we identified over a dozen private practices, regional hospitals and outpatient clinics in the area for follow-up care at a reduced cost.
The clinic was especially crucial for low-income, low-education, and minority populations, Charvu explained. A breakdown of patients showed that 37 percent were Hispanic, 43 percent were African American. About half of the patients had a high school education or less and many of the were non-English speakers.
“It was incredible to see such an enthusiastic response from volunteers and community organizations, with 120 people traveling from as far as Washington state to volunteer their time,” Charvu said.