LOOKING BACK ON RAM WISE 2018 • by Heather Canady Rhodes
Wise County, VA - Very early Thursday morning starts off just like every other morning in coal country. People going about their normal blue collar lives, getting ready for work in the coal mines just like their fathers and grandfathers have done for years. Everyone except a couple of dozen families. These families are setting up tents to camp in for the weekend at Wise Co. Fairgrounds. Why you ask… Remote Area Medical is holding its 19th annual clinic this weekend. These families know to makes sure to get there early for the free medical dental and vision care that RAM and the Health wagon provides. Only a specified number of patients will receive the care they so desperately need.
THURSDAY 10 AM. Trucks start rolling into town. These trucks are filled with all the equipment and supplies that are needed for the clinic. Volunteers are there to help set up a 40 chair dental clinic, a 7 lane vision clinic and a 45-50 bed medical clinic. Volunteers work nonstop until each and every station is perfect and ready for patients. They finally finish setting up about 5pm.
They have taken a small county fairground and turned it into a fully functioning clinic, complete with cardiovascular services, pulmonary services, vaccinations, women's health, plastic surgery, and much more. They have worked hard but know the real work has yet to be done. The real work will start at 5 am for hundreds of volunteers.
FRIDAY 5AM. Clinic Day 1 rolls around and volunteers start showing up by the car full, still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, coffee in hand, and eager to start the day. Volunteers are assigned to each department of the clinic, everything from trash pick up to patient check out. There is no unimportant job at s RAM clinic. Each and every volunteer provides a unique service the clinic requires to run smoothly.
FRIDAY 6AM. The fairgrounds gates are opened by Stan Brock and numbers start to be called. One by one patients are escorted to registration and then to triage to have some vitals taken and blood sugar levels checked. From triage they head to the services they need. The clinic only shuts down after all the patients have been seen.
The same scene repeats itself for the next 2 days. Roughly 1500 people are seen and over $400,000 worth of care is given, all for no charge.
SUNDAY, RAM Wise Day 3. Looking around the fairgrounds bustling with patients you can help but wonder why these people have waited all night in long lines all day for care. These are our friends, family members and neighbors. They are working people; surely they can get to s doctor or a dentist or an optometrist. Perhaps they can but the cost not covered by insurance is so high that most simply can’t afford to. It becomes a choice between medication and paying the light bill or buying groceries for the week. These are everyday people just like you and me.
Sunday evening rolls around and it’s time to go. The trucks pack back up and head to Knoxville where they will resupply for the next town in need. As the Wise County Fairgrounds clear off, you’d never know what has gone on this past weekend in a small quiet town in Appalachia, Virginia.
Heather Rhodes, author of this blog and pictured above with ‘Medicine Man: The Stan Brock Story’ Director Paul Angell and DOP Tom Goudsmit at Wise, is RAM Virginia’s On-site Volunteer Coordinator, and was part of the Med Man Virginia task force for our Tri-State shoot. Her assistance was invaluable. Thanks also to RAMVA’s Candy Hall for the dental photos used above, which she took at Wise, and to Matthew Sutherland for the aerial image taken over the County Fairgrounds site.