Care-A-Van adds dental, optometry programs
Mobile health service for the homeless, needy has made a big difference
Spencer Anderson
Comox Valley Echo
Friday, December 03, 2010
It may look like an ordinary RV from the outside, but the volunteer-run, mobile medical clinic known as the Care-A-Van is a much-needed safety net for the Comox Valley’s homeless.
It travels on a fixed route three times a week and provides free medical treatment such as tending to cuts and infections. Now, in addition to providing counselling services and medicine, the Care-A-Van crew will help clients get access to dental and eye care.
In spring, the Care-A-Van will have been on the streets for two years, a vindication of the initiative of Dawn to Dawn member and registered nurse Helen Boyd.
Boyd modeled her idea for the Care-A-Van after similar experiments in Toronto and other cities. As far as she knows, the Comox’s Valley’s Care-A-Van is the only one in existence west of Calgary.
However, she’s convinced it’s a winning idea, and cites her Care-A-Van’s performance here as proof.
It only costs $15,000 a year to run, she said, and has so far treated 300 people. Many of the people who use the service would not normally go to get treatment in a traditional clinic, and often endure terrible illness as a result, she added.
And quite often, these people end up in the emergency room, where it is more costly and difficult to treat them.
Boyd said the Care-A-Van and the 28 volunteers who run it help to treat people before their condition deteriorates, and help connect them to housing and other healthcare services.
Sunwest RV and Auto Centre owner Barry Willis was approached by Boyd more than two years ago to contribute to the project. He said he was skeptical at first, but Boyd didn’t give up. Willis finally agreed to donate an RV and take on the work of turning it into a functioning medical clinic, with the help of other donors and volunteers.
Even after the work on the RV had been completed, Willis said he was still a skeptic – until he saw the Care-A-Van in action.
“I never really could get it until she actually started visiting these stops,” he said, crediting Boyd’s “passion” for seeing the project through.
Boyd said Willis “took a risk” on the idea and added: “If it hadn’t been for Barry, we wouldn’t have got this project off the ground.”
Care-A-Van volunteer and physician Simon Colgan said the homeless are often hard to track down and treat in a typical medical setting, so once a month he offers his time to do just that.
“Often it’s a lot easier to go to them, basically,” said Colgan. “I felt that was missing from my practice, so I wanted to try and incorporate that in some way that would best soon them.”
“It’s a shame not to be able to give more time to it, to be honest,” he added.
spanderson@comoxvalleyecho.com