LA Memorial Sports Arena hosts free clinic

This weekend, the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena will be hosting the annual Care Harbor free health care clinic.

In partnership with L.A. Care, Care Harbor aims to turn free clinics into a gateway for patients to find sustainable care rather than  one-time treatment.

 

“This is not band-aid care,” said Care Harbor President Don Manelli.

The event started Thursday and will run until Sunday, with varying hours over the weekend. As of Thursday, 4,000 wristbands had been distributed, a substantial increase from the approximately 3,000 patients who received services last year.

Over the past three years, Care Harbor has provided medical, dental and vision services 43,822 times and nearly 3,000 patients have been connected with follow-up care.

Los Angeles County supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, one of the sponsors of the event, gave a statement to the press on Thursday morning.

“I believe that healthcare is a right and not a privilege,” Ridley-Thomas said in a statement.

L.A. Care CEO Howard Kahn said that 1-1.3 million people in Los Angeles County still do not have healthcare coverage.

Though it is a temporary setup in a sports arena, the Care Harbor clinic features key medical equipment, including four electrocardiogram machines, an ultrasound system for gynecology services and an oral cancer screen system that uses fluorescent signal technology to detect human papillomavirus.

A new section is the preventive dentistry station, where clinic patients learn habits to prevent common oral diseases. Manelli estimated that nearly 90 percent of dental problems they see are preventable with certain lifestyle changes.

Clinic patients can also make appointments for different types of services at various times to avoid waiting around the arena all day.

Through discussing progress for the clinic and ways to improve for the future, Care Harbor is hoping to implement larger-scale health care reform.

“Our dream is that this would be totally unnecessary,” Manelli said.