When Sleeping In The Car Is The Price Of A Doctor Visit
The Remote Area Medical charity holds dozens of free health clinics each year. Low-income patients waited in their cars and on blankets for the clinic to open one recent Saturday morning.
Broken teeth are all too often a punch line in conversations about poor people in rural places. But for Heather Wallace, dental problems are anything but funny.
"Basically it's just like a nerve pain. Your whole body locks up; you have to stop for a second to try to breathe," she said. "And sometimes if it hurts bad enough, you might cry."
Wallace and her husband James are both in their 20s. In early June, they traveled a couple of hours from Knoxville, Tenn. to a free. The Wallaces joined around 100 people camped out in their cars — and a few in tents — overnight to get a morning medical or dental visit.
