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After years of planning, a dedicated team of volunteers and organizers has gotten the new clinic off the ground.
Jennifer Brown remembers the wintry night in 2009 when she got the boost of confidence she needed to move forward with opening a Bluffton/Jasper County Volunteers in Medicine clinic.
“The weather outside was really, really terrible,” she said. “Hardeeville allowed us to use a community room in the Town Hall to have a meeting that night to recruit volunteers, and I was praying that a few people would show up. But when over 100 people showed, I knew we could make this work.”
Two years later, Brown is seeing her goals realized. The new VIM clinic on S.C. 46 in greater Bluffton will open in April. Currently, appointments can be scheduled from 8:30-11:30 a.m. on Mondays, and the clinic will be open from 5-8 p.m. on Wednesdays.
The first Volunteers in Medicine clinic, which opened its doors in 1993, was launched on Hilton Head Island by Dr. Jack McConnell, the inventor of Tylenol and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). When McConnell retired to Hilton Head, he learned that one out of three island residents had no health insurance, so he conceived the idea of opening a clinic to serve the working poor with volunteer doctors, nurses and other staff. The plan was so successful that more than 80 VIM clinics have opened across the country with the help of the National Volunteers in Medicine office.
The Bluffton/Jasper County VIM clinic is not directly affiliated with the clinic on the island — which serves only Hilton Head and Daufuskie Island residents — but has followed its model with the help of the national VIM.
It’s a good thing too, as the need for free health care services in Bluffton and Jasper County is great. Jenny Haney, the director of development, ran Bluffton Self Help before coming on board at the new VIM. She recalled a time at Bluffton Self Help when she was working with a family who couldn’t afford dental care for their small child. “The decayed tooth was so bad that the child could have died,” said Haney.
While the Bluffton/Jasper VIM is located in a small building, it will offer a variety of services, including dental care. Brown said she is hopeful that someday the group will be able to purchase the one-acre area behind the current building for a large, new clinic.
In the meantime, both Haney and Brown are excited about the prospects. As Haney says, “It really opens your eyes to all those things that you think are so important when you see families who can’t even afford to feed their children or provide them with decent medical care.”
HOW TO HELP
The Bluffton/Jasper Volunteers in Medicine clinic is located at 132 Bluffton Road in Bluffton, across from the U.S. Post Office on S.C. 46. The clinic is in need of lay volunteers and translators, as well as volunteer doctors, nurses and health care professionals. Medical equipment and laptops are also needed.
For more information, call 843-706-7090 or go to blufftonjaspervim.org. Donations can be sent to the Bluffton/Jasper VIM, PO Box 2653, Bluffton, SC 29910.
