With health care one of the most talked-about issues in the U.S. presidential campaign, I was interested to see tonight's "60 Minutes" story on a group called Remote Access Medical. It's a team of volunteer doctors and other medical professionals founded to provide free health care to people who couldn't afford it in places like the Amazon region of South America.
Now, because of the shortage of health-care coverage in the U.S., Remote Area Medical is conducting its free medical services in this country. You can see the "60 Minutes" story here and read a transcript of it. From what the story says, these free medical sessions that Remote Area Medical conducts are often having to turn away hundreds of people each time, because there are only so many volunteers and so many hours in a day to provide care to patients.
It's great that Remote Area Medical offers this service, but it's a shame that so many people have little or no medical health coverage and have to take advantage of its services.
This topic is obviously of high interest to lots of people: "Remote Area Medical" is tonight one of the most searched-for terms on Web search engines, and the story on the "60 Minutes" Web site has 150 viewer comments, even though the story aired just over two hours ago.
According to the story, Remote Area Medical operates on a shoestring budget and relies on private contributions, often small amounts from ordinary people. If you want to find out more about the group, their Web site is www.ramusa.org/. Remote Area Medical is accepting financial donations as well as volunteers, and they still perform missions overseas, often in dangerous regions of the world.
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