John Muir Community Health Mobile Clinic

For the underprivileged and uninsured, Saturday mornings at the Village Community Resource Center means free access to medical services and even medicines. Every Saturday, the John Muir Mobile Community Health Clinic faithfully rolls in and opens its van doors to adults and children who need urgent medical care.

A mother takes her 1-year old toddler in for asthma. An elderly woman seeks treatment for her back pain.

Catalina Estradi brought her 2-year old son, Ernesto, to see the doctor because of a lingering bad cough.

“I am here because of a sore throat,” said repeat patient and Brentwood resident Maria del Rocio Soriano. “They are nice and they treat me well,” she said in very slow and broken English.

On board today is John Muir Registered Labor and Delivery Nurse and qualified bi-lingual interpreter, Jackie Michaels. She welcomes the patients into the van and onto the designated exam rooms, where they treat an average of 20 patients a day, depending on the season.

“Winter is flu season,” says Michaels. “We held a flu clinic last month and gave about 200 flu shots.”

Michaels explained that the mobile clinic holds a staff of 4 volunteers (nurses and staff) and one doctor.

“Our services and meds are free,” said Michaels. “We are here for the working poor or the uninsured. We administer the urgent care that they need and refer them to the proper County health programs if they need it. We try to get them into the system, make sure that they get the follow through care that they need, and make sure that they don’t fall into the cracks.”

Hemo-dialysis Registered Nurse and volunteer Alma Pack quotes the Bible, “To whom much is given, much is expected.”

A full-time nurse at the John Muir facilities in Walnut Creek and Concord and at the Sutter Delta Dialysis Center, Pack is delighted to help out the mobile clinic’s patients while sharpening her Spanish-speaking skills. She has been volunteering every Saturday for two years.

Pleasant Hill private practitioner and family physician Dr. Patrick Jolin has been committed to the mobile community clinic for six years now.

“Sometimes, it’s better here because I don’t have to deal with the financial side of things, like going through insurance and collection,” said Jolin. “It’s great yet humbling to help people that I know need assistance and to try to make a difference in their lives.”

Jolin enumerates respiratory infections, diabetes and high blood pressure care as the more popular ailments he treats and explains that they dispense limited urgent care, referring emergency cases to hospitals.

“I may be treating them, but the patients teach me a lot in terms of the struggles they go through in terms of health, without much economic resources,” said Jolin.

The John Muir Mobile Community Health Clinic comes to the Village Community Resource Center at 633 Village Drive, Brentwood, on Saturdays, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon. Call (925) 513-3107 for more details.