Arsonist destroyed vehicle, but not mobile health workers’ ability to reach out vulnerable individuals

By Erick Bengel, Rogue Valley Times

Last month, an arsonist burned La Clinica’s new Mobile Health Center beyond repair. Until the health care provider can purchase another mobile unit, La Clinica has fallen back on old-school outreach.

The mobile health workers still head to the Medford Navigation Center, Rogue Retreat Crossings (formerly the Medford Urban Campground), Set Free Christian Fellowship and the OHRA Center in Ashland.

From about 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, they see homeless and other medically and financially vulnerable individuals and connect them to housing, food and other resources.

Without the mobile unit, the team is referring patients who need medical assistance to La Clinica’s Acute Care Clinic. If the provider doesn’t have capacity for patients who need dental and behavioral care, the patients get referred to Options for Southern Oregon, ColumbiaCare Services and Jackson County Mental Health.

La Clinica still offers taxi vouchers — a service it is looking to expand — and bus tokens to help people make their appointments.

In addition, La Clinica has decided to purchase telemedicine equipment that will allow patients at the sites to get help remotely. If the patients don’t have a smartphone or iPad, La Clinica will offer them a laptop or desktop.

The Medford Navigation and OHRA centers plan to give La Clinica space so patients can have private virtual appointments. Rogue Retreat Crossings, which doesn’t have space for that, will transport patients with telemedicine appointments from the campground to the Navigation Center.

Pat Heumann, 80, lives at the Navigation Center. She remembered when the mobile health team treated her at the Medford Gospel Mission, a former destination of the Mobile Health Center.

“I had an infected finger, and they took care of that,” she said, “and then they gave me cream for my knees because I’ve got arthritis.”

Some people, she said, are more comfortable visiting the Mobile Health Center than they are a doctor.

“A lot of people use it that are sick,” Heumann said.

When she had to leave the mission, a mobile health worker helped her avoid a shelter with a questionable reputation.

“He got me a bed here at the Navigation Center,” she said, “and I really appreciate that.”

Heumann laments the loss of the new Mobile Health Center, which she never had a chance to use.

It had been in service less than week when a Medford man broke into and burned the 39-foot trailer before dawn June 23. The vehicle was parked in a docking bay behind La Clinica’s Phoenix Health Center.

Earlier this month, Daniel Timothy Garay, 31, pleaded guilty to charges of arson and burglary, and to separate charges involving two other burglaries and impaired driving. He was sentenced to more than four years in prison.

When Garay set the mobile clinic on fire, he did not destroy anything that couldn’t be replaced, according to Ed Smith-Burns, La Clinica’s community partnership director. The trailer — bought for $728,000, mostly with American Rescue Plan Act funds — and medical equipment inside were insured.

But the incident left gaps in services.

“The loss really is to the community in terms of our ability to serve our most vulnerable residents,” Smith-Burns said.

The arson happened on a Friday. The following Monday, the mobile health workers did as much outreach as possible, “primarily to assure people that we were still there, and that we would still be there for them,” he said.

After the fire, La Clinica was most worried about those who sought regular care at the Mobile Health Center. The staff has been checking in on them, making sure they have their medication, seeing if they’re following their treatment plans, facing any extra barriers.

For a moment, La Clinica thought it could deploy the old mobile clinic, which had served patients since 2012. It had been having mechanical problems and was decommissioned shortly before the new trailer went into service.

After Garay destroyed the new vehicle, La Clinica staff toured the surrounding area and discovered that the older vehicle — parked in a fenced lot adjacent to the health center — had been vandalized. A window was broken and someone had tried to pry open the door.

La Clinica doesn’t know when the vandalism occurred. The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office told La Clinica that someone had cut through the fence, which has barbed wire along the top, Smith-Burns said.

In any case, the medical tools inside — including equipment for collecting and processing lab specimens, and laptops for charting encounters with patients — had been transferred to the new vehicle and were lost in the fire.

So while the vandalism to the old trailer wasn’t significant, “we can’t use it,” said Julie Wurth, La Clinica’s communications officer. “We would have to restock it with equipment.”

La Clinica plans to sell the old one and use the proceeds to support the mobile health operation.

The provider is working with its insurance carrier to determine the extent of the damage. It’s possible that the chassis can be salvaged. Once that is known, La Clinica will start the process of getting a new Mobile Health Center, Smith-Burns said.

After the fire, La Clinica supporters asked how they could help. Some people donated money to the nonprofit. A mobile health manufacturer said it could loan the provider a mobile medical unit; La Clinica had to decline because medical equipment was not included in the offer.

“But the outpouring of concern and assistance from our community has just been overwhelming,” Smith-Burns said.

Reach reporter Erick Bengel at [email protected] or 458-488-2031. This story first appeared in the Rogue Valley Times.