Posts
Project Health Moves, a Health
Innovations program that delivers services from Northeastern University’s
Health in Motion van, recently visited Boston’s Main South Neighborhood of
Murray Avenue to provide HIV tests, STD and hepatitis screenings, immunizations,
and referrals to care for underserved residents. During the visit, 11
Northeastern University nursing students, nurses, and health educators saw 84
clients, including uninsured immigrants and refugees, homeless victims of
domestic violence, the working poor, drug users, and uninsured citizens.
The mobile clinic visits the
neighborhood four times a year, but the level of need would warrant dozens of
visits annually if funding were available. Health Innovations Clinical Director
Catherine O’Connor stated that Project Health Moves, which is funded by the
state Department of Public Health’s Office of HIV/AIDS, decides which
communities to visit based on “rates of drug overdoses, incarceration,
admission to drug treatment, STDs, HIV infection, homelessness, and teen
pregnancy.” Project Health Moves compares these factors with available
community resources to avoid duplicating services.
Although the most recent visit
coincided with the National Night Out event in a Murray Avenue park, Project
Health Moves usually sets up the mobile clinic by neighborhood businesses who
partner with the program. Neighborhood partners include Compare Food
Supermarket and Maria’s Kitchen. Volunteers who were committed to serving
underserved populations also supplement the van’s staff. Rossana Encalada,
assistant director of nursing at Fenway Community Health, provides specialized
care for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender clients. Her husband, a
program manager for Akamai Technologies of Cambridge, assists with registration
and logistics. Project staff also follow up with the van’s clients, helping
some resolve MassHealth insurance problems and moving others into an acute
detoxification unit in north Massachusetts.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus.
To learn more about The Friends of
AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
