Jackson County nonprofit health provider rolls out new mobile health clinic

In February, a bright blue, 38-foot-long, custom-built mobile health clinic rolled into Jackson County. Five days a week, it provides an array of free or low-cost services in Medford and Ashland that range from filling medications and running lab tests to dental exams and wound treatment. The mobile health clinic is operated by La Clinica, a nonprofit that for nearly 40 years has been helping meet the health care needs of primarily low-income residents in Jackson County.    This is La Clinica’s third mobile health clinic and the first time it has been able to provide these services in nearly three years after an arson fire destroyed its previous mobile clinic just a few days after it began seeing patients. Roughly 160 patients have already visited the new mobile clinic during its stops at food pantries, campgrounds, apartment complexes and other sites, according to Zulma Larios, La Clinica’s field-based care manager. The patients include Latinx residents afraid of visiting hospitals and clinics because of increased federal immigration enforcement, unhoused people and former adults in custody reentering society. Larios joins us to share more details about the impact the mobile health clinic is having.