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Jonathan Cleek, 25, and his wife Tonya Cleek, 24, of Kingsport, Tenn., settle in for the night, sleeping under the stars on the hot pavement in the parking lot of the Bristol Motor Speedway, May 2, 2013, joining the hundreds of others in the parking lot who are waiting overnight for the chance to be seen by volunteer doctors, dentists and nurses with the Remote Area Medical Foundation as RAM holds a three-day session to give free medical and dental care to those who are uninsured or underinsured.
Remote Area Medical offers free health care to the poor in Appalachia.
Hunter Bright, 18, and his girlfriend Ashley Beall, 22, of Marion, Va., spend time in their car, spending the night in the parking lot of the Bristol Motor Speedway, May 2, 2013, joining the hundreds of others in the parking lot who are waiting overnight for the chance to be seen by volunteer doctors, dentists and nurses with the Remote Area Medical Foundation as RAM holds a three-day session to give free medical and dental care to those who are uninsured or underinsured.
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In the pre-dawn hours hundreds of people huddle under the stars as they gather at the gates of the Bristol Motor Speedway, May 4, 2013, people who were waiting overnight for the chance to be seen by volunteer doctors, dentists and nurses with the Remote Area Medical Foundation during a M.A.S.H. style, three-day clinic to give free medical and dental care to those who are uninsured or underinsured.
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People hug in the pre-dawn hours at the Wise County Fairgrounds, where hundreds of people have arrived for free medical and dental care from the volunteer doctors, dentists and nurses of the Remote Area Medical Foundation in Wise, VA., July 20, 20123.
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In the pre-dawn hours hundreds of people huddle under the stars as they gather at the gates of the Bristol Motor Speedway, May 4, 2013, people who were waiting overnight for the chance to be seen by volunteer doctors, dentists and nurses with the Remote Area Medical Foundation during a M.A.S.H. style, three-day clinic to give free medical and dental care to those who are uninsured or underinsured.
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Faith Statzer, 11, of Bristol, Va., lays under her blanket on the pavement as she, her family and hundreds of other people arrive at the gates of the Bristol Motor Speedway, May 4, 2013. Some of these people spent the days camping out in the parking lot for the chance to be seen by volunteer doctors, dentists and nurses with the Remote Area Medical Foundation as they hold a three-day session to give free medical and dental care to those who are uninsured or underinsured.
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A volunteer uses a bullhorn to talk to the hundreds of people who have arrived in the pre-dawn hours at the Wise County Fairgrounds for free medical and dental care from the volunteer doctors, dentists and nurses of the Remote Area Medical Foundation in Wise, VA., July 20, 20123.
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Troy Collier, of Coeburn, Va., brings his 22 year-old son Ryan Collier to the triage tent at the Remote Area Medical clinic at Wise County Fairgrounds, July 20, 2013. Ryan, who is taking 20 different medications every day, is living with Cerebral Palsy, hydrocephalus, scoliosis, seizures, a blood disorder and a cyst on his brain, but is here today to see the dentists.
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A Heart Coach sign is taped to the side of a building normally used to work with farm animals at the Wise County Fairgrounds during the Remote Area Medical clinic at the Wise County Fairgrounds in Wise, VA., July 19, 20123.
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Sara Hopkins, 41, of Pikeville, Ky., waits to be seen by one of the volunteer doctors for a medical check up in the makeshift medical exam stations at the Wise County Fairgrounds, July 21, 2013, during the three-day Remote Area Medical clinic for a check up and free vision tests and glasses.
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A man, partially hidden by a bedsheet hanging on clothespins, is seen by one of the volunteer doctors for a medical check up in the makeshift medical exam stations at the Wise County Fairgrounds, July 21, 2013, during the three-day Remote Area Medical clinic for a check up and free vision tests and glasses.
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Wendell Baldwin, 38, of Coeburn, Va., gets an ultrasound for his gall bladder in a makeshift medical exam station at the Wise County Fairgrounds, July 21, 2013, during the three-day Remote Area Medical clinic for a check up and free vision tests and glasses.
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Dentists and their assistants work on patients under a large tent at the Wise County Fairgrounds, July 20, 2013, during the three-day Remote Area Medical clinic for a check up and free vision tests and glasses.
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With a print out of his x-ray on his lap, a man gets free dental work done at the Wise County Fairgrounds, July 21, 2013, during the three-day Remote Area Medical clinic for a check up and free vision tests and glasses.
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Dentist tools are organized for use at the Remote Area Medical Foundation clinic where doctors, dentists and other medical specials volunteer their time and talent to offer free care and treatment for those in need at the Wise County Fairgrounds in Wise, VA., July 19, 20123.
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A dentist chair sits temporarily empty at the Remote Area Medical clinic at Wise County Fairgrounds, July 19, 2013.
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A building normally used for the county fair is set up as a makeshift vision exam station at the Wise County Fairgrounds, July 20, 2013, during the three-day Remote Area Medical clinic for a check up and free vision tests and glasses.
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A building normally used for the county fair is set up as a makeshift exam station with hanging bedsheets used for privacy, at the Wise County Fairgrounds, July 20, 2013, during the three-day Remote Area Medical clinic for a check up and free vision tests and glasses.
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A dentist takes a moment for pause in the middle of the hustle and bustle in the dentist tents at the Remote Area Medical clinic at Wise County Fairgrounds, July 19, 2013.
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After having nine of his own teeth pulled just minutes before, Carlos Johnson, 51, holds the hands of his wife Sheila Johnson, 50, both of St. Charles, Va., as she has 16 of her teeth pulled out by dentist Dr. Mike Miller at the Remote Area Medical clinic at Wise County Fairgrounds, July 20, 2013.
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After having nine of his own teeth pulled just minutes before, Carlos Johnson, 51, holds the hands of his wife Sheila Johnson, 50, both of St. Charles, Va., as she has 16 of her teeth pulled out by dentist Dr. Mike Miller at the Remote Area Medical clinic at Wise County Fairgrounds, July 20, 2013.
Healthcare in Rural America
Photography by Rod Lamkey Jr.
“When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her.
It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed”
They came through the hollers with the winding clear streams, lush overhanging trees and ancient rocky hillsides wet with morning dew and fog. They drove in old jalopies and walked over the mountain roads. They came from Haysi, Dante, Big Stone Gap, Kingsport and other small towns near the Tennessee and Kentucky borders too small to have a name.
They came looking for help. They came for free healthcare and a little relief from their lives below the line of poverty. This is southwest Virginia, the land of black lung disease and mountain music. Where the legend of Ralph Stanley seeps into the veins of the coal miners in Trammel and the waitresses at the Huddle House in St. Paul.
In these hills, these hollers, where life hangs on by a thread in a trailer tucked away off the county road and Oxy is not just a household name but a new currency, to barter for lawnmowers and other life essentials.
Carlos Johnson’s mouth is filled with bloody gauze, his face is red and his hair is grey while he is hunched over, holding on tight to the left hand of his sweetheart Sheila, her wedding ring reflecting the sun. She whimpers in pain and runs her fingers through his hair with her right hand, while the dentist’s tools remove 16 of her teeth under the shade of a big white tent at the Wise County Fairgrounds in the humid heat of a July afternoon. The dentists and interns are gathered around her as she lay back in the chair, blood on her bib, tubes for water and suction, her teeth placed into a plastic jar.
Those able to make it to RAM clinics in some of America’s most remote and rural communities any way they can, sleep in tents or cars in parking lots in places like the Wise County Fairgrounds in Wise, Virginia where kids show off their favorite animals and live stock, or a NASCAR racetrack like the Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee, where cars race at high speeds to roaring crowds, now the infield is converted into a MASH style hospital. Here in these places they arrive by the hundreds, waiting to enter this oasis from their suffering.
The silence of the dawn is broken as the chains were unlocked and the gates opened and silhouetted against a predawn cobalt sky with the stars still out, Remote Area Medical founder Stan Brock, with his bullhorn in one hand, stood to greet the huddled masses, shaking the calloused hands and hugging the most needy as they slowly filed past him. The doctors, dentists and medical specialists were a blur of white coats, racing to some patient behind a bedsheet waiting for that hand of care. Waiting to be healed.
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