Help Provide Free Care
Your gift helps RAM provide free dental, vision, and medical services to people in need.
In 2011 a documentary called Remote Area Medical followed Remote Area Medical — RAM® to a clinic in Bristol, Tennessee. The documentary focuses on RAM’s patients and what services they need from the RAM Clinic. This award-winning documentary is now streaming for FREE on Tubi.
The documentary follows many patients on their treatment journey as they attend the clinic. Starting in the patient parking lot, the documentary crew talks to patients that have been sleeping in their cars for days for the opportunity to be seen by medical professionals and receive care for free. Many of these patients brought food and provisions to allow them to stay in the parking lot until the clinic opened at 6 A.M. on Friday morning. They chose to stay in the parking lot to guarantee their place in line because RAM Clinics are first-come, first-served until the clinic reaches capacity.
The cost of healthcare is debilitating for many, and they are forced to go without necessary medical, dental, and vision care. In the documentary patients discuss the difficulties affording the care they need because they do not have health insurance or if they do have insurance, they cannot afford the insurance’s co-pay.
“The thing that weighs on me the most is, we have people in desperate need within our borders. Remote areas and medicine? We don’t have to go too remote,” said one RAM Volunteer.
One older patient said to one of RAM’s volunteer providers that he had not been to a doctor since he was a teenager; this patient did not know that he had been experiencing high blood pressure. Others had not gotten a new pair of glasses in as many as seven years, and their inability to see was impacting their ability to work.
The patient stories in the documentary show how prevalent the need for free healthcare is throughout the country. No matter where RAM goes in the U.S., we find patients in need of our services. The clinic in Bristol, Tennessee served more than 2,000 patients, providing more than $606,000 worth of free care in three days.
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Your gift helps RAM continue providing free care to people in need.
“These patients are real. Their needs are real. It’s a reminder of the people in America who have no access to the system,” a RAM Volunteer said.
The documentary also shows the emotional connections that are often formed between the patients and the healthcare professionals at RAM Clinics. One dentist shared that seeing patients crying from the pain relief of having an abscessed tooth removed made her cry as well. For her and many others, it’s hard to hold back tears while witnessing patients finally receive the desperately needed dental care they have gone without. Their relief and gratitude inspire volunteers to return time and again.
This documentary covers a RAM Clinic from waiting in the parking lot to taking down tents and loading them back into the trucks, and nearly everything in between. For a more in-depth look into a RAM Clinic and the impact it has on people’s lives, click here to stream Remote Area Medical for free.
Since the documentary aired RAM has been able to help thousands more patients — read Max’s story to see how RAM Volunteers and community members came together to help a high school student in need.
If you would like to donate to RAM to help us to continue bringing free dental, vision, and medical care to patients, please visit https://www.staging8.ramusa.org/donate/.
We hope to see you volunteer at one of our upcoming clinics!
