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Mary Young, who has worked as a registered nurse and is a Bethesda Community Mobile Clinic volunteer from Hope Lutheran Church, of Ellijay, takes a man’s blood pressure on the third Wednesday of August.
Bob Surrusco and Jim Famolaro take calls for the local St. Vincent de Paul Society from people in need of emergency assistance for food and electric utility bills. They began to wonder where residents on a lower socioeconomic level were going for health care.
The Knights of Columbus are another service arm of Good Samaritan Catholic Church, and Surrusco said the Knights began to “reach out to the other churches in the area” about the issue.
“One of the things that we came across is that all the congregations are fairly small, so the only way to really affect change is to be ecumenical and get everybody involved,” Surrusco said. “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel — we don’t have time for that — so I found Bethesda in the Canton area that does an excellent job.”
Bethesda Medical Clinic, with its main medical office in Holly Springs, is now sending a mobile medical van to Gilmer County once a month. They set up shop on the third Wednesday from 10 a.m. — 2 p.m. in the parking lot of Spring Plaza beside Industrial Boulevard and within a stone’s throw of Faith, Hope and Charity Recycle Store
Melissa Belfield, executive director of Bethesda Community Clinic, outlined their medical services.
“We provide low-cost and free health care to the uninsured and under-insured, those who can’t afford to pay their co-pays and premiums or may only have Medicare Part A — who can’t afford to actually go to the doctor,” she said during their visit last week. “We provide those primary-care services for them in our brick-and-mortar clinic in Canton, and in our mobile clinic which has just started a route up here in Gilmer County. We’re here once a month to provide primary care, medication management, physicals, women’s exams, blood work — we can do all of those things that you do in your primary-care office — for free. We are privately funded.”
The Rev. David Smedley, pastor of Hope Lutheran Church, detailed how the mobile unit visits began.
“I got a call from Don Hyde with the St. Vincent de Paul Society, saying they had had conversations with these people (Bethesda) about how to get them started (here),” he said. “So we had a meeting, he from the Catholic church, me from the Lutheran church, some people from Cherry Log Christian Church and also some people from First Methodist Church. I had contacted three or four other pastors who had indicated they were kinda interested, but none of the them showed up. So there’s four churches involved.”
Smedley said the quartet of churches is “trying to get other people involved.”
“My experience here in Ellijay is that it takes awhile sometimes for things to get started, but once they do, (residents) support it wonderfully,” he noted.
‘Don’t turn anyone away’
Belfield pointed out Bethesda in the Canton area is a “low-cost, cash-pay clinic, but we don’t turn anyone away who’s is in need of care.”
“We’re a faith-based organization, privately funded as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and do not even require an ID like a federally-funded clinic for the underinsured would,” she said, adding that two units visit Cherokee and Cobb County locations on a weekly basis.
“As far as a safety-net clinic, we haven’t found any options for uninsured individuals (here),” Belfield said. “A lot of people don’t have access to transportation, so we want to bring the clinic directly to where the people are in the most need. I was approached by a group of several churches who (asked) can we talk you into doing that up here if we had a rally-around site and could support you in that endeavor? That’s why we agreed. We were thrilled to see so many different churches with different backgrounds working together in unity to make something good happen. We thought why would we not want to be a part of something like that?”
Getting the word out
Involved local churches are getting the word out by going to the county health department and community focus groups, putting fliers in strategic locations like the Faith, Hope and Charity store and also posting on social media.
“We’ve found in marketing to our demographic that it’s word-of-mouth that helps spread (the word),” Belfield said.
Three medical professionals from Bethesda include a doctor and phlebotomist for taking blood, and the rest are volunteers from the churches. Medical issues treated include small ailments such as cough and cold, and more serious issues such as COVID, diabetes, hypertension, asthma, high cholesterol and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).
“We carry medications on our mobile unit that we hand out for free to our patients,” Belfield continued. “So if we diagnose someone with diabetes, we have a lot of different resources and programs for that person so that they can get their insulin for free — and testing supplies. Since we’re here consistently, we can follow up with them. When you’re uninsured, going for a physical — going to a doctor when you’re not sick — is a luxury. So people wait until they end up in the emergency room before they realize that they need to take care of things in themselves, and they don’t have that extra money to go get a physical. We do that completely free here, so we suggest anyone who has not had a physical in the last 12 months to come by and get a free physical, get a few labs drawn, and we can establish what your needs might be.”
Smedley said the staff of Bethesda are “just great.”
“I’ve talked to Bob, and we hope to do some type of fundraising over the next little while to get one of these units for the community, and then find doctors and nurses and people who can staff it so it can be more than once a month,” he hopes. “But that’s going to take time.”
Smedley said on one third Wednesday a total of 17 local residents came for free health care at the mobile clinic during their four-hour stay.
Surrusco summarized, “The thing is, we don’t care if people are documented (citizens), we don’t care what their income level is, and we don’t care what their religious affiliation is — we serve everybody in the community. And they don’t even have to be from Gilmer County. We’re pretty full service, and it’s only going to get better.”
He added that Gilmer Chamber and local school officials are also supporting the mobile clinic because it’s “good business.”
“If I’m working for you — even if I’m undocumented and doing labor work — and I’m out sick because I’m afraid to get health care, who’s going to do my job?” he asked. “If we can help the health of our business employees … it goes directly to the bottom line of the business.”
How to get free medical care
﹣ Who: Bethesda Mobile Medical Clinic
﹣ Where: Spring Plaza Shopping Center, Industrial Blvd.
﹣ When: Third Wednesday each month, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
﹣ Cost: Free
﹣ Needs: St. Vincent de Paul, 706-636-2772 (for Gilmer residents only)
﹣ Donations: bcccherokee.com/donate