A community response to health care for the underserved
From a distance, the 30-foot bus with a multicolor wrap could be mistaken for a touring musician’s ride to Hertz Arena, or perhaps an avid college football fan repping their school colors with pride.
Step inside, and the reality is far different: a mobile health clinic and portable doctor’s office that brings essential primary and preventive care to some of our community’s most vulnerable residents, many of whom are uninsured, to the neighborhoods where they live and congregate.
From Gladiolus and Pine Manor to Florida SouthWestern State College, the Center for Progress & Excellence to Mt. Hermon Ministries and the nonprofit Café of Life resource center in Bonita Springs, we are committed to bringing health equity to everyone, regardless of their circumstances.
I launched Premier Mobile Health Services in 2018 with a dream – and a leap of faith, purchasing that first mobile unit (we now have three off eBay using my own personal savings).
Since then, we have served more than 12,000 clients, providing frontline care during the COVID-19 outbreak, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian and now on a daily basis at our bricks-and-mortar walk-in clinic on Colonial Boulevard.
Our services include early-detection health screenings, blood pressure and diabetes checks, drug screenings, basic metabolic profiles, nutrition counseling, basic vaccinations and school and sports physicals for children.
The mobile units include our own pharmacy, an in-house laboratory and an electronic medical records (EMR) system that allows us to digitally track patient care. We have affiliate agreements with multiple universities, offering valuable real-world training to a steady stream of medical residents, nurse practitioner students and other health care professionals transitioning to professional careers.
Thanks to generous private donors and grants from such community partners as Lee Health, United Way of Lee, Hendry and Glades, and others, patients without health insurance and with proof of income below 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines receive complimentary care, while those who exceed those income limits are provided care at a significantly reduced rate.
That includes patients such as Liurdis Cabrera, 69, an uninsured Naples resident who visited the Bonita clinic on a recent overcast Friday morning with complaints of knee pain. The diagnosis: a benign cyst for which we prescribed the appropriate medication.
“I’m so very grateful for the medication,” Cabrera said in Spanish after her appointment.
Our patients' circumstances are not that far removed from my own. Growing up in Jamaica, I came to this country as a teenage mother and high school dropout, drowning in self-destruction and self-hate.
Fearful of deportation, I was often afraid to seek medical care – but soon committed to taking charge of my circumstances, earning my GED in hopes of a career in nursing.
Starting that path as a certified nursing assistant in Fort Lauderdale, I subsequently obtained associate and bachelor’s degrees in nursing from Edison State College (now Florida SouthWestern), a master’s in nursing from South University and just last year, a doctorate in nursing practice (DNP) from that same institution.
A mobile medical clinic was a distant dream, a post-retirement plan borne from a graduate school capstone project.
That distant dream became a real-time reality while working at a local hospital and seeing far too many young Black males on kidney dialysis, diagnosed with chronic yet preventable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity.
For these patients and others on the margins, the affordable and dependable medical care that those of us with means often take for granted were simply out of reach. It was then that I made the commitment to bring primary medical care to those in need.
We’ve been fortunate to benefit from support far and wide, including participation in a Harvard University project that tracks mobile health clinics. I’m also a board member of the National Association of Free & Charitable Clinics, an invaluable resource that connects Premier Mobile Health Services with peers from across the country.
But it’s here at home where we count on most of our support. Financial support is crucial, of course, but so is human capital. Volunteers are always needed. Please join us in helping to deliver community health care to our corner of paradise, regardless of circumstances.
Nadine “Deanie” Singh is founder and chief executive officer of Premier Mobile Health Services.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: A community response to health care for the underserved
