RAM clinic draws large numbers in need of medical, dental care

Remote Area Medical
What: A free health care clinic
Where: Wise County Fairgrounds
When: Today and Sunday, beginning at 6 a.m.
To know: Tickets are handed out earlier. Get there before it opens.

WISE, Va. – Christine Dotson of Appalachia, Va., hasn’t eaten properly in eight years because of problems with her teeth.

Namely, she needs some.

That’s why she was among the hundreds lining up Friday at the Wise County Fairgrounds for free medical and dental care.

“I’ve had no teeth to eat with,” Dotson said. “You never know what foods are out there that you can’t eat until you lose your teeth. You appreciate simple things, like cucumbers.”

That all changes this weekend.

Dotson, at the Remote Area Medical clinic to get dental X-rays, said she won the denture lottery. Today, she will be fitted with a top set of dentures, and a partial for her lower jaw.

Eleven years ago, at the first RAM clinic, Dotson got new glasses, which she still wears today.

Now in its 11th year, RAM is a three-day health care event in which uninsured, underinsured and unemployed patients receive medical care provided by a host of volunteers and truckloads of donated supplies and materials. The clinic is a joint project of several health care and social services agencies – and spearheaded by the Health Wagon, a mobile health clinic that serves the Appalachian region.

Each year, the clinic has served upwards of a thousand people; and each year that number has grown to the point that not everyone who arrives gets assistance. Some are turned away, due to the lack of time, or supplies, by the end of the three days.

By 6 a.m. Friday, RAM volunteers had distributed 1,500 tickets to patients who would be assisted that day. After that, those arriving at the gate were told to return today.

Some of the patients had camped overnight to get tickets with low numbers, which would mean a shorter wait to the see a doctor or dentist.

Theresa Gardner, executive director of the Health Wagon, said you could probably take the RAM event held in Wise and put it anywhere in the U.S.

“You could probably have the same results,” she said.

“All over the country, people have trouble affording insurance and co-pays at the doctor’s office,” Gardner said. “There are lots of baby projects that are born from this.”

The event unfolded smoothly Friday. Each station – dental, eye, general medical, and an array of other services including mammograms and visits with a chiropractor – had been set up under a series of large, canopy tents and was ready to go by 7 a.m.

As the patient visits began, Chasidy Smith sat in a plastic chair under one of those tents with a baby on her lap and another in a stroller; 16-month-old Logan munched on Apple Jacks out of a plastic bag while sitting on his mom’s lap; 2-month-old Peyton slept in his stroller. Mom, sitting amid hundreds of other patients, was waiting to have her teeth cleaned and fillings replaced.

She, her children, and eight other family members drove in from Gate City, Va., arriving about 10 a.m. Thursday, a full 19 hours before the Remote Area Medical health clinic opened its gates.

“My husband is getting his teeth pulled,” Smith said. “He got laid off in October and didn’t get a job until about three months ago.”

Smith said RAM is the only place her family can come for medicine, because although her children are insured under a state program, she cannot afford medical insurance for herself and her husband.

“We can’t afford to do it anywhere else,” she said. “The kids would be taken care of but we wouldn’t.”

She said her family came last year, too.

“It’s kind of a family thing,” Smith said about camping out Thursday night to wait for care Friday. She got in line about 3 p.m. Thursday, and drew a ticket with the number 247 – of about 1,500 – meaning she got in relatively early.

“If we didn’t have it [RAM], then we wouldn’t have anything,” she said.

In the Lions Club tent, Shiela Ward was among the first to pick out new glasses this year.

“I look like a little bug,” Ward said, trying on a pair in the Lions Club tent.

She hastily discarded the insect-like frames and picked up another pair.

“I like these,” she said of the black frames. Satisfied, she moved on to be fitted and to send the frames off for the proper lenses.

“What does it mean to have eyes and you can see?” she asked. “It is wonderful. Thank God for stuff like this, especially the way the economy is, and this is a poor area around here.”

About the time Ward was choosing her frames, Jessica Antonio of Jenkins, Ky., waited in the grandstands for her turn to register for the health clinic. She also hoped to get glasses.

“I’ve got medical insurance, but glasses are really expensive,” Antonio said. “It’s hard to take $400 and buy a pair of glasses.”

Similar stories are echoed by patients all across the fairgrounds.

Georgeann Wampler, of Dryden, Va., has coverage of some sort but it is not enough.

“I’m disabled with Social Security and you don’t have dental with it,” Wampler said. “And you want to keep your teeth as long as you can.”

Patients at RAM also have the opportunity to take advantage of other free services.

Donna Beaver, of Wise, Va., had her teeth cleaned, but she also visited the chiropractor, got her glaucoma, hearing and sight screenings, and was heading over to the medical services tents to have her cholesterol checked and have a physician look at a pulled ligament in her arm.

Visiting the chiropractor was a good stop, she said.

“He popped my neck and it just feels more relaxed,” Beaver said. “That part was almost as good as the dental, but I knew I needed the dental.”

arobinson@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-3385