The health wagon

The health wagon serves remote communities in the Appalachian mountains of south-west Virginia. It's the oldest mobile clinic in the USA, founded in 1980 by a catholic nun in the back of a VW Beetle.

Today it is a thriving and innovative non-profit, with five mobile units and three stationary clinics. Nurse practitioners Dr Teresa Tyson and Dr Paula Hill Collins are at the helm. We join them and their team, providing no-cost medical, dental and vision care to one of the most vulnerable, medically underserved areas of the United States. In 2021, the Health Wagon treated nearly 11,000 patients.

At the Wise County fairground, the health wagon partners with the US military for a 10-day event. Barns are sanitised and transformed into a makeshift dental surgery and medical centre, ready to treat patients. For the military, this is an innovative readiness training mission - a program which gives reserves the opportunity to train while helping local communities.

We also hear from Wendy Welch, executive director of the Southwest Virginia Graduate Medical Education Consortium and the author of multiple books about health in south-west Virginia.

(Photo: A volunteer checks a patient's vision at the Remote Area Medical (RAM), mobile clinic in Wise, Virginia. Credit: John Moore/Getty Images)