A Wichita-based medical nonprofit has sent several of its mobile clinics to Texas areas hit by recent floods.
A “clinic in a can" is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a 20-foot shipping container converted into "just one doctor's office," says Cory Simons, CFO of the nonprofit Clinic in a Can. "They're set up basically for primary care."
Simons says the group has been deploying its mobile doctor's offices around the world since 2005, to as far away as the Philippines and West Africa, in response to disasters like earthquakes, and the Ebola outbreak.
Clinic in a Can has already sent four units -- to of them solar-powered -- to Houston, with another on its way; members of Heart to Heart International are providing the staffing.
Simons says Heart to Heart had to redirect some of its own mobile clinics to Florida before Hurricane Irma hit.
“We brought in our units to Heart to Heart down in Katy [Texas] so that way they wouldn’t leave a void there when they left and went to Florida.”
He says Clinic in a Can is ready to send a unit to Florida too, if needed.
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