Non-Profit Medical Group Brings Health Care to Poor, Uninsured
To most Americans, the governments in their towns and regional areas called counties are the governments they interact with the most. And alongside these local governments are groups of citizens who work on their own to make life better. In this segment of a multi-part series, VOA's Jeffrey Young focuses on a private-sector initiative in Montgomery County, Maryland meant to ensure health care for all.
[Update: Mr. Robert Spector has resigned as MobileMed Executive Director. Our current Executive Director is Ms. Katherine Morrison.]
The film playing on this page was created by the Voice Of America and is a wonderful illustration of the work of MobileMed described in Mr. Young's article. We thank the VOA for graciously allowing us to play it here.
Montgomery Ponders Investment Needed to Expand Ventures, Reach More Adults
They came to a church basement in Silver Spring to celebrate health care for the uninsured in Montgomery County. West African women in neon-bright cotton prints; robedand collared clergy from Bangladesh, Canada and Vietnam; business-suited doctors and elected officials.
Community organizer Jean-Bernard Neim, origionally from Cameroon, beamed at the crowd assembled at Our Lady of Vietnam Church that afternoon in June. 'It's a day we never thought would come,' he said. 'The opening of ...the very first pan-African, Haitian clinic in the greater Washington area.'
A choir of a dozen men and women, representing nin African nations and Hati, took the stage. 'It's mervelous, really marvelous,' they sang in French, clapping and awaying and bringing the audience to its feel.
A Silver Spring Clinic Addresses Language, Other Hurdles to Care
Since moving to the United states from China in the late 1990's, Qi Jiang Shu and his wife, Jing Bo Yu, of Derwood hadn't visited local doctors for help with their health problems.
Instead, they usually waited until they could make a rip back to China, where they'd stock up on medications needed to treat Shu's diabetes and hypertension and Yu's back pain and gallstone problems.
