The mobile clinic is a long, lumbering recreational vehicle emblazoned with the words “Health Care for the Community and Homeless Outreach.” Every evening from 5 until 9 it can be found at one of about a dozen different locations, such as shelters and parks. Its mission is to bring care and healing to people who might otherwise remain sick and hurting.
“The goal of the outreach van is to meet patients where they are living,” said Oluwabunmi “Bunmi” Olusola, homeless site director for Unity Health Care, an organization that, since its founding in 1985, has become a major health care provider for the District’s homeless population.
“We serve patients who, for whatever reason, have difficulty coming into one of our clinics. While we do whatever … we can on the van, we also always encourage people to come to a clinic where we can provide even more comprehensive care,” said Olusola
The Mobile Outreach Van project was launched in 1986 as a way to bring health care to homeless men and women living on the streets and in the shelters . On Friday mornings, the van
goes to Foggy Bottom to meet potential patients at the Miriam’s Kitchen breakfast program.
Some evenings, the outreach van coordinates its visits to McPherson Square Park with those of McKenna’s Wagon, a mobile soup kitchen that brings boxed meals to homeless people on the street every night. The outreach van pulls up near the McKenna’s Wagon van to catch the attention of ailing homeless people that line up for the free meal.
“The idea is you go somewhere where there’s a draw to help ensure that we get a large crowd and are able to serve a large number of people,” said Anne Cardile, medical director at the Community for Creative Non-Violence shelter and an outreach van physician volunteer. “So we always try to go to a shelter or to a park where there’s a feeding van.”
The outreach van physician volunteers see about 100 patients per month, said Olusola. The most frequently treated ailments include hypertension, diabetes, arthritis and colds. The van has the resources to provide HIV testing, diabetes testing and blood pressure screening. A variety
of medications are available on the van, but the physician volunteer might also write a prescription for a familiar patient.
“We get a lot of regulars,” said Cardile. “For a lot of them, this is their primary care. Some of them already have primary care, but they need a little something until their next office visit. We try to make help more accessible.”
Bruce Williams is a longtime patient, and a very satisfied one.
