AmeriCares Deploys Mobile Clinic to Staten Island

AmeriCares Deploys Mobile Clinic to Staten Island

Stamford, Conn. – Nov 1, 2012 – AmeriCares is partnering with Staten Island safety net clinic Beacon Christian Community Health Center (BCCHC) to bring care to storm-affected patients in northwestern Staten Island. AmeriCares deployed a 40-foot mobile medical clinic to the hard-hit borough, helping the BCCHC remain open despite a lack of power, and donated crucial relief supplies. More than 100,000 households remain without power in Staten Island, and nineteen of the borough’s residents lost their lives in the storm.

In the wake of Sandy, patients at the clinic are following up from hospital visits, running low on chronic care medicines or arriving with cuts and scrapes or flu symptoms. AmeriCares is donating hygiene kits and health kits with personal care items to the BCCHC.

“We are grateful to AmeriCares for helping us continue to provide care for patients on Staten Island after this terrible storm. The ability to triage patients and keep a mobile clinic available during this power outage is keeping patients out of the emergency room,” said Dr. David Kim, Executive Director of Beacon Christian Community Health Center. “No one on Staten Island has ever done this before.”

The BCCHC serves as a primary care center for people in need in the Mariners Harbor community. It treats between 60 and 80 patients daily or 15,000 patients each year. AmeriCares assistance will help it stay open until power is restored and it resumes normal operations. The clinic will be open on Friday, Nov. 2, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Future hours or additional information can be obtained by contacting an office operator at 718-815-6560 or by visiting facebook.com/Beacon-Christian-Community-Health-Center.

AmeriCares is delivering crucial aid to benefit victims of Superstorm Sandy along the East Coast and is reaching out to more than 130 health care facilities in affected areas with offers of assistance. The aid organization is sending 5,000 hygiene kits to communities in need. Trucks of bottled water and other needed supplies are en route. AmeriCares keeps medicines and relief supplies in stock in its Stamford, Conn., warehouse, in preparation for emergencies, including medicines for patients with chronic health conditions. For more than three decades, AmeriCares has responded to disasters around the world and in the U.S., including Hurricane Isaac in Mississippi and Louisiana, tornadoes in Kentucky and Indiana and wildfires in Colorado.

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