After the Riots / NEWS IN BRIEF : High-Tech Van to Provide Health Services to Needy
The PacifiCare Foundation--the charitable arm of Orange County’s largest health maintenance organization--on Wednesday donated $400,000 to the Watts Health Foundation for a high-tech van that will provide mobile health services to the indigent and uninsured.
From Watts to Santa Ana, the coach will pull up to area churches, schools, community centers and homeless shelters, offering X-rays and mammograms for people who often can’t get expensive diagnostic services.
“We’ll take the coach wherever there are roads,” said Dr. Clyde Oden, chief executive of the Watts Health Foundation, which was founded shortly after the 1965 Watts riots. “This will help people break the cycle of misery.”
Mayor Tom Bradley hooked PacifiCare Health Systems President Terry Hartshorn up with the Watts group after the April riots.
“The civil unrest that happened really put a spotlight on the fact that we had to do something in a major way to help from a health-care standpoint,” Hartshorn explained.
The new coach will augment the Watts Health Foundation’s 10 mobile doctor’s offices. Those coaches provide primary care services, but not X-rays and mammograms, Oden said. Patients will be referred to the van by a network of social service agencies and community centers as well as physicians working at local clinics.
Oden said the Watts Health Foundation still needs another $200,000 to keep the diagnostic unit rolling for its first year.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
