Delaware County health leaders are hitting the road to improve access to basic medical services.
A 33-foot-long RV, retrofitted as a mobile health clinic, will offer vaccines, blood pressure readings, prostate cancer screenings, and information about county clinics and doctors.
Called Wellness on Wheels, the initiative is intended to bring resources to communities that may struggle to access care, especially after the region’s leading hospital system, Crozer Health, closed last year.
“Public health works best when we meet people where they are,” said Lora Siegmann Werner, director of the Delaware County Health Department.
County leaders marked the opening of the clinic, which is funded by $310,000 in federal grants, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Glenolden on Friday.
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DCHD in the community
Residents can expect to find the mobile clinic at routine county health events, such as the Hoops for Health basketball tournament in Darby June 20.
The health department is creating an online form for organizations to request the mobile clinic to come to community events.
Werner said she is eager to increase the fledgling health department’s visibility in the community through the mobile clinic. Delaware County created its health department in 2022, after seeing during the COVID-19 pandemic the need for greater public health outreach.
“It’s a way to be seen and present in a way we haven’t before,” Werner said of the mobile clinic.
The RV is equipped with a wheelchair lift, an exam chair, storage areas for supplies, and a small refrigerator for vaccines, medicines and lab samples.
Improving access to care
The new clinic-on-wheels brings a “critical lifeline” to parts of Delaware County that lack medical facilities, said Delaware County Council Chair Richard R. Womack.
The void grew last year when Prospect Medical Holdings, the for-profit owner of Crozer Health, closed the county’s largest hospital under bankruptcy proceedings. Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland operated the county’s busiest emergency department, a burn unit, and a 24/7 behavioral health crisis center.
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Since then, patients in Chester and the surrounding area have had to travel – often taking multiple buses, if they don’t drive – to Riddle Hospital in Media, Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby, or other providers in Delaware and Philadelphia.
ChristianaCare has acquired several former Crozer outpatient offices and opened this week a new micro-hospital in Aston. The Delaware health systems is planning to open a second micro-hospital in Springfield next year.
Womack hopes the mobile clinic will further help residents connect with doctors and get up to date on routine health screenings.