There is an article in the August 16, 2009 edition of the Los Angeles Times by columnist Steve Lopez entitled "At Free Clinic, Scenes From The Third World." The article is about what dentists and doctors faced when non-profit group Remote Area Medical organized a free mega clinic at the Forum in Los Angeles last week. In Los Angeles it is estimated that 1 out of 4 working age adults do not have health insurance in Los Angeles, a metropolitan area of 10 million people. This means 2.5 million people in Los Angeles area alone are without health insurance.
Remote Area Medical was founded to travel to the third world and -- and with amazing local support -- was asked to come to Los Angeles where they found third world health conditions. The eight-day event has been drawing overwhelming response for free dental, vision, and medical care. They treated about 750 people a day (many of who had camped out) and turned away many more. This highlights how our healthcare system is not working for a large percentage of our population and why the debate on how to fix it is so heated. There were are lot of human stories at the Forum -- people who couldn't see, had untreated diabetes, had missing or infected teeth.
The article can be found at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez16-2009aug16,0,3959652.column
Posted by Tracy Green at http://www.greenassoc.com/
Remote Area Medical was founded to travel to the third world and -- and with amazing local support -- was asked to come to Los Angeles where they found third world health conditions. The eight-day event has been drawing overwhelming response for free dental, vision, and medical care. They treated about 750 people a day (many of who had camped out) and turned away many more. This highlights how our healthcare system is not working for a large percentage of our population and why the debate on how to fix it is so heated. There were are lot of human stories at the Forum -- people who couldn't see, had untreated diabetes, had missing or infected teeth.
The article can be found at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez16-2009aug16,0,3959652.column
Posted by Tracy Green at http://www.greenassoc.com/
