The best-kept secret in Lane County: Volunteers In Medicine
4 min read
At the Churchill Area Neighbors’ citywide health care forum, a question for the executive director of Volunteers In Medicine, DeLeesa Meashintubby. On Sept. 26:
Jensina Hawkins (Moderator, CAN Citywide Health Care Forum): This is from Health Care for All Oregon, Lane County chapter. A quote from the Commonwealth Fund: ‘The U.S. spends twice as much per capita than other rich countries, lives shortest lives, and has the most avoidable deaths.’ What is your response?
[00:00:30] DeLeesa Meashintubby (Volunteers In Medicine): We have to do better. (Yeah!) We must do better. That’s truly my response to that because we’re here and we’re better together, all of us working together to take care of our communities and our older people, we want them to live to be older. And I could say that because I’m an older person now and I want to live longer.
[00:00:55] But what I say now is that we have to take care of each other. It has to be from the baby on up. And it’s not a given time that we die, but it’s a time that we thrive until we go from this earth, so I would say we must do better…
[00:01:16] I’m DeLeesa Meashintubby. I’m the executive director at Volunteers In Medicine Clinic. I feel health care is a right.
[00:01:25] What I’m going to do right now is I’m going to talk about the best-kept secret in Lane County which shouldn’t be the best-kept secret in Lane County, and that’s Volunteers In Medicine clinic.
[00:01:37] We’re a free primary care clinic for the low-income, uninsured, underserved adult population. And VIM is here to collaborate with our partners here on the stage, because we really want to be that true safety net clinic.
[00:01:57] We’re a clinic here to where doctors can come in and volunteer their time. That’s where some of the doctors that left OMG or Optum came, and they came and volunteered with us, seeing those patients who did not have access to care, who did not have money that could afford to go out and buy their medicines and such.
[00:02:19] Because at Volunteers In Medicine, not only do we see primary care, we have a charitable pharmacy on site. We have the ability to draw the blood, spin it down, and the laboratory runs those tests free of charge for the patients there.
[00:02:37] It’s the community helping the community. So sometimes what I’d like to see us do is, maybe just one shift a month—and a shift is three and a half hours, maybe four at the most per day—and if you would have them come in and volunteer part of their time, then Volunteers In Medicine could open that door and be that bridge or that safety net that could get some of these patients in, that can’t get in to be seen.
[00:03:05] So I would just say: There are options, but we’re better together and we have to learn how to work together. It’s not about the dollars all the time. You know, I look at the bottom line all the time every day as an administrator but then I have to take my glasses off and see the person, and see the heart of the person that’s needing the help. So this is where we have to stop saying, ‘This is how much this is,’ and ‘This is how much that is,’ but saying, ‘This is what they need.’
[00:03:38] And one thing about Volunteers In Medicine, like I said, we’re a free clinic. We’re able to pivot into what the community needs us to be and that’s not to say ‘their patients,’ ‘his patients,’ ‘my patients,’ it’s to say, ‘This is our community that we’re taking care of.’ And Volunteers In Medicine wants to be whatever the community needs us to be to take care of the patients and the community.
[00:04:06] And I’ll tell you now: A healthy community is a thriving community. And so that’s where we’re at. And I also live in the Churchill district and I’m also the pastor of St. Mark’s CME Church, which is in this district as well.
[00:04:23] So we’re here to hear you, we’re here to listen to you and most of all we’re here to understand.
[00:04:30] John Q: Local health care leaders answered questions for 75 minutes. At the end of the evening, Pastor DeLeesa called the health care forum an important first step.
[00:04:40] DeLeesa Meashintubby (Volunteers In Medicine): This has been a good start to a conversation. Instead of us trying to boil the ocean, I ask that we try to do what we can do now to help the situation. It might not cure the whole issue, but it’s a start. And the best thing about it: If you take one step, the second step will be a whole lot easier. So let’s get going.
[00:05:09] John Q: The best-kept secret that shouldn’t be a secret: Volunteers in Medicine.
(With Executive Director DeLeesa Meashintubby at the Churchill Area Neighbors citywide health care forum.)
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