The Uplift Mobile Health Clinic

I. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

The concept of an Uplift Mobile Health Clinic was spawned as a result of the Foundation’s desire to make an impact on the lives of the Filipino people and boost the nation’s condition. Since health care is a basic human necessity, the Foundation saw an opportunity to respond to this need and reach out to select communities and increase access to health care services of low-income families.

The Mobile Health Clinic will provide medical services similar to those offered in a typical family physician’s clinic but will focus mainly on the pediatric population of patients, 0-19 years old. It will establish a link to a fixed health facility and a larger health system to which patients can be referred if necessary. This portable clinic will serve children from low-income families who are without a regular primary care physician, and those who have difficulty obtaining affordable health care in their community.

The services to be offered will include consultation, immunization, well baby checks and treatment for common illnesses. We will also provide education, nutritional counseling and screening for health problems that can be prevented or improved by early detection and intervention. Access to dental care with a strong focus on prevention and education will also be offered.

The mobile clinic will have an onboard computer system for data collection, charting, and financial management. It will also be used to create educational materials, with an access to the internet for communication and other relevant purposes.

The Foundation believes that it takes a community to keep a community healthy, thus it will work in close cooperation with other private and government medical service providers, pharmacies, local and state agencies, groups and organizations that can help improve the general status of the community.

In the Philippines, mobile health clinics are uncommon. The adoption of this health delivery system can expand community outreach in both rural areas and urban centers. In the face of economic difficulties, people with health care problems in underserved communities may not have any option but to wait for affordable health services. The longer these people wait, the more serious and expensive health care becomes. The mobility of a health facility will allow it to conveniently serve multiple populations where the need is high and services are hardly accessible.

To give dignity to the marginalized people in these target communities, not all medical services will be offered for free. Nominal fees will be charged to develop in them a sense of responsibility and independence, and also to support the daily operation of the mobile clinic.

II. OBJECTIVES
• To provide basic health care services via a mobile clinic to a segment of the economically poor, and medically under served population in a select community with special emphasis on children.
• To provide prevention and development services to the primary target community through health education programs, preventative health care clinics and other prevention and development dimensions according to pre-assessed needs.
• To provide low cost primary health care and education to the sick and marginalized sector in a given community regardless of race, religious belief, gender, and origin.

III. AREAS TO BE SERVED

To be pre-selected according to the criteria set and collaborated by the Uplift Team and designated sponsors.