Taking Help Where It’s Needed

It is frustrating for community service agencies to have worthy programs go unused because many of the people most needing help can’t get to it.

To their credit, instead of sitting back and serving only those who come through the door, more agencies are putting their help on wheels, and taking it into the community where it can do the most good.

Last month, a St. Joseph Hospital clinic that provides health care to farm workers in the county joined with the county Health Care Agency to field a mobile X-ray service to identify and help people with tuberculosis, which is increasing in the immigrant population.

The mobile van is not like others used in the past. This one will do skin tests to see if a person is positive for TB, and X-rays to determine if the disease is active. It will be in service on Sundays when workers are more available for testing.

St. Joseph Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Orange County also operate mobile clinics providing medical and dental care, and immunizations for agricultural workers and thousands of children in elementary schools and community centers in central Orange County.

St. Jude Hospital in Fullerton has vans that visit four North County cities, providing free immunization, and prenatal and medical care. Fullerton also has the Mobile Family Resource Center, sponsored by 15 of the county’s public and private agencies, bringing health and social services to the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

Without these, and the mobile services offered by many other community agencies, poor families would have no access to medical treatment, health care and vital social programs. Unlike the general population, the poor being served have no health insurance and no way to get to hospitals and care facilities.

They lack transportation, and many working in low-paying, hourly wage jobs couldn’t afford to lose the income if they took time off and spent hours on buses and sitting in waiting rooms to get medical treatment or TB skin tests.

The immunization and early detection of communicable diseases is a vital part of the recipients’ well-being and is a component in the overall health of the county.

The vans are themselves an important medical advance. It is good to see them mobilized to reach needy segments of the county population.