We just returned from Wise County, VA where volunteers provided free medical care for people who had no means to "purchase" it like the rest of us, and are exhausted from the weekend. I have no official stats, but am quite sure we helped more people than ever before. I am also quite sure that we had to turn away more people than ever before. Our three Lions Mobile Sight and Hearing Vans got quite a workout. I became a patient myself when an ulcer on my foot broke open so I got to see it from both sides. The Doctor who looked at my foot was once a student I taught in the Medical School at Medical College of Virginia. She is now at UVA among a fine crew of volunteers from that school. Virginia Commonwealth University was well represented too. Let me tell you that this free medical care in tents is as good or better than some I pay through the nose for. These poor folk are getting some of the best if only one weekend a year. Look below the break for more.
Tonight I will not rant about the situation that made this weekend necessary. I am too full of love and praise for all the people that kept the Wise County Fairground full all weekend. The volunteers and the patients, all fine people on different ends of a human experience that defies description! Dentists working on teeth while their patients sat in portable dental chairs in tents. The three Lions Vans doing hearing, glaucoma, and visual accuity screening. The building filled with sophisticated optical equipment used by the doctors following up on the people whose vision was found lacking in the initial screening in the Lions Vans. The large tent organized to take the prescriptions churned out by those overworked eye doctors and fill them with glasses from a number of sources. We Lions furnished recycled glasses, and RAM actually has a Mobile Unit that grinds glasses on the spot. If that capacity was overwhelmed, people left their prescriptions so their galsses could be mailed to them. As a Lion I know more about this aspect of what went on, but far, far more was also happening. The Fairground is huge. These medical and dental facilities are spread hither and yon. This means a whole corps of volunteers had to act as escorts, shuffle paper work, etc so that we could maximize the efforts of the professionals. In other words they were worked to the point of dropping. Lots of porta potties out there too. At each group were hand washing facilities.
Then feeding all those folk. The volunteers got fed breakfast and lunch in a grandstand area. The local Lions Clubs provided, prepared, and distributed the food. This included bag lunches for the patients who were sitting in the folding chairs under canopies waiting for their turn at various stations around the Fairgrounds. Then there were the golf carts giving drinks and helping those not ambulatory (which, unfortunately, included me this morning). School supplies, women's health info, chiropractors and other practitioners were stationed here and there. A mamiogram Van. I can't possibly convey the magnitude of this operation!
The official time was 6 to 6 on Friday and Saturday, but so many worked on beyond that. Then grab a bite and hop into bed. Most of the motels were within a half hour drive if you booked months in advance. Others were as far as Big Stone Gap or Bristol. That meant precious time used to travel back and forth.
Welcome to the other America folks! This is happening in your country. These are your fellow Americans. I said I wouldn't rant in this diary, but I'm warming up for that one. I hope you will think about what this all means. There is a lot to think about.