A patient receives dental care during SC Mission 2011.
Columbia, SC (WLTX) - SC Mission 2011 helped thousands earlier this month, providing them with free medical, dental and eye care services.
It exposed a need in our state, one that's still large, so News19 wanted to know what folks who need help can do who may not have made it out to the event. Previous Coverage: Hundreds of Volunteers Work Together to Provide Free Health Care
"Now that we have a plan, we know the parts that work extremely well. We know the parts that we need to make some adjustments on. I certainly hope that the group will agree to get back together and do this again," says Vince Ford with Palmetto Health.
He believes that SC Mission 2011 will change how health care is viewed, saying, "It's gonna force a whole other conversation with elected officials, appointed officials, with hospitals and health and human services agencies to really look at need."
Despite the number of those helped at the two-day event, so many more residents are still in need.
"A lot of the people I spoke to were people who worked 40, 50 hours a week who couldn't afford care," explains Britt Hinks with Providence Hospitals, "The point was to provide care for people that needed it immediately, but to also be able to place them in what's called a 'medical home.'"
And that's where the United Way and the South Carolina Hospital Association come in. "We do have some resources that people can still tap into if they were not able to be seen," says Cheryl Johnson-Benjamin with the United Way.
You can find out about those resources by calling their help line by dialing 211. Explains Johnson-Benjamin, "If someone is calling in for dental services, adult dental, we have a couple of programs here in the Midlands that service those who do not have dental care." Or you could look at another resource by asking Laura Hewitt about the Hospital Association's program, Access Health SC. It develops networks of free care.
"The whole purpose of Access Health SC is to do what Mission 2011 did on a one-day event, but to make it broader," she says, "So that folks in those areas don't have to delay treatment. They have somewhere they can go that's not the emergency room, but that they can get the care when they need it on an ongoing basis."
Adds Ford, "Most of us know that the need is great. But what it showed the entire public is that the need is even much greater than that."
For more information on Access Health SC, you can call the South Carolina Hospital Association at 803-796-3080 or visit their website at scha.org.