Free pop-up health clinics offered

On Sunday, two free health clinics were offered to the public in the Coachella Valley.

One at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Mecca and the other at the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians gymnasium.

Many received free dental and eye care including teeth cleanings, eye exams and some people even got glasses for free.

News Channel 3 met with the event coordinator as well as the Vice President of Loma Linda University Children’s Center who helped put these clinics on.

“From the community members we heard that we mostly need dental and vision services, so we’ve put teams together from both our optimology, our Eye Institute and our dental school, school of Dentistry which runs a service learning program so those two teams came to provide services and screen as many patients as possible,” Crissy Irani, Research Analyst for Institute for Community Partnerships and event coordinator of the clinics told News Channel 3.

Irani says the hope is to serve a need in the community and provide safe healthcare.

“It’s a challenging time with ICE and other things being threats for people in the community here and it makes it difficult to understand where safe care is and where safe care isn’t so be sure you do research and do appropriate things to make sure you know who is providing that care,” Brett Walls, Vice President of Loma Linda University Children’s Center said.

The effort is being called, “Coachella Connect.”

If you missed these clinics, Irani said they plan on doing four a year but doesn’t have the date of the next clinic yet. Stay with News Channel 3 for details on upcoming free health clinics.