10:30pm | St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach unveiled its new 38-foot custom Mobile Care Clinic at a ceremony this past week. The Mobile Care Clinic vehicle, which is expected to reach tens of thousands of residents with its benefits, is part of the new St. Mary Breathe Easy Mobile Outreach Program being launched thanks to an $834,000 grant from the Port of Long Beach. The Clinic will provide asthma outreach and respiratory diagnostic services to individuals of all ages in communities nearest the Port of Long Beach and its transportation corridors.
March 22 will mark the mobile clinic’s first public use phase, where it will be at Chavez Park at 10:30am to provide screening for residents in ZIP codes 90813, 90802 and 90806. Following that, the bulk of initial screenings will occur in April; over the next 12 months, the expectation is that St. Mary will provide respiratory services to more than 22,750 individuals.
As previously reported, the Port has already poured millions of dollars out into Long Beach and the surrounding areas. In 2010, they gave Long Beach Poly High School a $545,899 grant for an air-filtration system that has improved the classroom air quality for over 3,000 students. Last year, BREATHE LA received a $355,874 grant to work with children specifically living within a 3-mile radius of the Port of Long Beach in order to address and reduce asthma and lung health problems over the next three years.
Senior housing facilities, schools, and community centers will refer potentially high-risk, underserved residents to the Breathe Easy Mobile Outreach Program.
In attendance at the ceremony were Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster; Susan E. Anderson Wise, President of the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners; Area Roman Catholic Bishop Oscar Solis; Gail Daly, CEO, St. Mary Medical Center; Drew Gagner, President, St. Mary Medical Center Foundation; Jyoti Datta, M.D., St. Mary Chief of Staff; and Sister Gerard Earls, St. Mary Vice President, Mission Integration.