The Sentara Mobile Care Unit is hitting the road to better provide health care access to the community.
The unit is housed in a van, which Sentara Health launched late last year, and provides health care to people through a clinic on wheels that houses two exam rooms.
Community health workers can provide services such as primary care appointments, vaccines, and screenings through the mobile unit, which serves both Harrisonburg and Rockingham County.
“Our goal is to provide primary care to those who have been marginalized or underserved,” said Onesimo Baltazar Corona, the director of operations for Sentara Community Care.
This includes serving those whose primary language is not English. Many of the healthcare workers speak Spanish, and translation services are also available in the mobile units, he said.
The clinic provides services to both children and adults and is free to those who qualify financially, he said.
One of the clinic’s locations is the Navigation Center, located at 1111 North Main St., which is the site of the city’s low-barrier homeless shelter.
The shelter provides free health care to those staying there through the Suitcase Clinic, a healthcare initiative for people experiencing homelessness, which James Madison University runs. The clinic has a space in the Navigation Center.
“Housing and healthcare go hand in hand,” said Nate Riddle, executive director of Open Doors, the nonprofit organization contracted with the city to operate the Navigation Center. “This part of the community has been kind of identified as a health desert.”
Open Doors has expanded to offer services beyond the shelter itself, Riddle said.
“We want to emphasize that we’re here for the community at large,” he said. “We want to see a healthier community.”
Deputy City Manager Amy Snider said that the Sentara Mobile Unit partners with the city to provide services at both the Navigation Center and Ralph Sampson Park.
“We were excited to be partnering with them,” Snider said, “and we would be open to partnering with any healthcare provider who has a similar model. We want to reduce as many barriers as possible for individuals to be able to access primary care services. We thought it was a good opportunity to partner with them to bring those services right into neighborhoods where people could more easily get to services, especially if they may not have access to a personal vehicle.”
The Sentara Mobile Clinic is at Ralph Sampson Park, 620 Simms Ave., from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Mondays, and at the Navigation Center, 1111 N Main St., from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Mondays.
The Sentara Mobile Unit is also at Hope Distributed, 1869 Boyers Rd., Harrisonburg, on Thursday from 2 to 7 p.m., but, starting in August, it will be there every first and third Thursday rather than every week.
Also starting in August, the Sentara Mobile Clinic will also be at Broadway High School, 269 Gobbler Dr, Broadway, from 3:30 to 7 p.m. every second and fourth Thursday, Corona said.
For more information on the mobile clinic’s hours and locations, visit sentara.com/CommunityCare.
To schedule an appointment, visit one of the clinics during its scheduled hours or call the Sentara Community Care Clinic at 540-564-5880.
The stationary Harrisonburg Community Care Clinic, which is located at 640 S. Main Street, is open from 8:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday.