Remote Area Medical is an organization of volunteers who provide general medical, surgical, eye, dental, and veterinary care to tens of thousands of people and animals, with 60% of the expeditions serving rural America.

This picture is a shot from an annual clinic they provide “in Wise, Virginia, where Virginia, Kentucky, Tennesse, and West Virginia meet. This emergency room has over two thousand triage patient encounters a day, dealing with everything from root canals and diabetic complications, to pregnancies and mental health issues. This is also the only emergency room in the United States where all care provided is a hundred percent free of cost. Some people drive from as far away as Ohio and Alabama just to be able to get free medical care, and it’s often the only medical attention they’ve received in years.” (mydd.com)

It’s open two and a half days a year and the numbers are amazing. “Last year, over 80 patients received free hearing aids they wouldn’t have been otherwise able to afford. Hundreds of mammograms were provided to patients who had gone years since receiving their last one, if ever. Over 2,000 individual prescriptions were filled, with the knowledge that once the patients ran out of medicine, they wouldn’t be able to get anymore.” People get free preventative tooth extractions too.

All of this and they turn away thousands by the end of the weekend. Let that sink in. This is America we’re talking about here. My church pretty routinely sends medical/dental missionaries all over the world. Those same guys and gals also pull local volunteer time too. It feels wrong on some level to need this. We should be able to handle ALL of our people’s needs who have them. We should be able to send ALL of RAM’s volunteers to other countries. Instead, what’s going to happen?

The University of Virginia who helps fund and support this particular effort came close to not being able to honor this clinic commitment this year. Due to budget cutbacks the governor had to make, they didn’t have the money from the state. Thankfully private donations came through and they will, but it shouldn’t be that close. If things continue to get tougher will RAM be in Wise in 2010? Who knows?

How hard would it be for the churches in VA (and NC and wherever else) to fund things like this instead of things like this?

There’s enough money floating around in various Christian coffers to take care of the “least of these”. That could even free up some money being spent by the government on those people to be spent on other things, or not even spent at all. You’d think that would make conservative Christians happy. They get to be pious AND give the rich folks a tax break. Okay this is developing into a rant, so before things get ugly up in here I’ll close the way MYDD.com did.

If you are able, please, donate to the Remote Medical Area organization- or, even better, if you’ve got some free time this July 24th-26th, and are a medical professional of any kinda, come down to Wise and volunteer your time.

Any help is better than none; any help will help us make up the difference in what has been lost already. And it will have a real effect on people who had nothing well before this economic crisis.

Thank you, and God bless.