07749
November 16, 2007
PC(USA)’s mobile health van works in Arizona’s borderlands
Project provides health education, screenings in remote areas
A National Health Ministries volunteer gives a Tucson resident a hypertension assessment during Mission on the Move’s visit to the Arizona borderlands. Photo by Chandra Kearns. LOUISVILLE — Working in partnership with local Presbyterian churches and community service agencies, “Mission on the Move” (MoM) — the General Assembly Council’s National Health Ministries mobile health unit — is spending this week providing health education and screening services to people in the border regions of Arizona.
Volunteer health and service professionals from several presbyteries in the region have converged to spend the week teaching some of the country’s most vulnerable people how they can improve their health through simple screenings that are too frequently inaccessible to them, such as for diabetes and hypertension.
The “MoM” volunteers are also helping identify those people who are at risk for other diseases more prevalent in this region than elsewhere.
“People who live in this area of the Southwest, particularly Native Americans of the Pima and Tohono O’odham Nations experience some of the highest rates of diabetes in the world,” said Pat Gleich, associate for National Health Ministries. “Not only is the incidence of the disease high, but the rate of complications resulting in amputations and shortened lives make screening and teaching self-care absolutely critical.”
“MoM” is serving several small communities in the Tucson area, stopping at Immanuel Presbyterian Church and Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, as well as the House of Neighborly Service and the Giving Tree Outreach Project.
In addition, there are two different stops scheduled for Papago United Presbyterian Church in Sells, an area with particularly high rates of diabetes among adults and asthma among young people.
“The health disparities are so apparent here,“ said Chandra Kearns, coordinator of the project. “Each time we prepare to go and serve a community, we assess the health risks we know will be prevalent. Even knowing what we will find, it is always so startling to meet the people and hear the stories of conditions that contribute to poor health. I only wish we could do more.”
The MoM mobile health project is supported by special contributions from individuals and congregations. Purchase of the mobile unit was made possible by a grant from Presbyterian Women. During 2007 “MoM” has visited many health-care underserved communities, including New Orleans, providing a coordinated way for Presbyterians who are health or service professionals to volunteer and contribute. Reaching out to all generations, the MoM van also visited the Presbyterian Youth Triennium at Purdue, IN, this summer.
One additional service “Mom” is providing on its borderlands trip is the distribution of special shoes for diabetics. Salvation Army of Louisville donated more than 200 pairs of shoes for the effort, the result of what Kearns called “the great working relationship” developed between the Rev. Jim Garrett, a Presbyterian pastor who works with the Salvation Army, and the mobile health project.
Plans are now underway to finalize the 2008 MoM schedule. For more information about providing volunteer or financial support, visit the Web site or contact the National Health Ministries office by email at health@pcusa.org, or toll free at
1-888-728-7228, x5787. |
