Dear DWW Supporter,
Doctors Without Walls - Santa Barbara Street Medicine (DWW) would like to thank you for your ongoing support to provide free medical care to the most vulnerable populations living in Santa Barbara County. Your generous donations have helped us to achieve our 2020/2021 primary goal of reducing the spread of the COVID-19 virus, through education and vaccination, while still providing medical care to our clients.
Let me tell you about our organization’s – and our clients’ – journey through this pandemic.
COVID-19 caused Doctors Without Walls to shift our perception on how to medically serve our unsheltered and marginally sheltered clients. In March 2020, as our local community was State mandated to shelter in place, we were faced with the reality of the true numbers of unsheltered people who were living on our community streets. As homeless shelters asked residents to leave due to social distancing and fear of the spread of COVID-19 virus, the numbers of people living on the streets tripled. We would soon discover that more and more of our unsheltered clients were moving into community neighborhoods to seek shelter and set up encampments. In the last 12 months, Doctors Without Walls had 4,566 encounters with unsheltered and marginally sheltered homeless, 1,047 of which became medical encounters.
Doctors Without Walls volunteers were the first responders to deliver care to the streets in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2020 we realized how very vulnerable our clients were and began to see health problems caused by a closed society. We discovered food and water scarcity. Our clients found an even starker reality: No more public drinking fountains, no more panhandling, no more restaurant leftovers, no more dumpster diving, and no more meal shares. There was no access to restrooms or bathing facilities, such as public restrooms, YMCA, and Cabrillo Pavilion. Access to regular medical facilities such as Sansum, Public Health and other medical agencies closed because of State congregant setting mandates. Out of necessity, Doctors Without Walls began to treat underlying conditions such as heart, lung and liver disease, diabetes, arthritis, allergies, etc.
We were no longer providing just urgent care; we were providing primary care.
The goal of Doctors Without Walls Wrap Around Care Program is to continue to provide medical services to the most vulnerable populations in Santa Barbara County by practicing street medicine in encampments, abandoned buildings, freeway on ramps and off ramps, beaches and wherever they are. Due to the spread of COVID-19, Doctors Without Walls was suddenly delivering food and water, clean clothing, tents, sleeping bags, blankets, solar chargers, and medical supplies to encampments to keep the population we serve sheltering in place. Our anticipated outcome was the reduction of the spread of COVID-19 while still providing the best medical care possible for unsheltered populations, and suddenly we became the “all necessary” service to the community we serve.
Doctors Without Walls began to advocate for the populations we serve. We began to use our voice to share what we were witnessing and how we were serving to help other agencies find their way back into service. We worked with county and city governments, local shelters, and Public Health. We attended county and city taskforce Zoom meetings and shared our wins and our losses in the hopes that this pandemic would change the way we treat homelessness in the future.
Doctors Without Walls has vaccinated 53.5% of our county’s homeless population. We started early in our conversations with our clients. We explained that the vaccine was coming and prepared them on what to expect. As the primary group to serve this population, they trust us. We came trusted partners with Public Health who provided our vaccine supply, and Doctors Without Walls created a Pop-Up Vaccination Clinic Model and trained Public Health on how to execute. We worked side by side in constant conversation sharing our back door phone numbers and moved forward in our fight to stop the spread of the virus and educate our community on the common problems we all faced with our ongoing disaster of homelessness.
Doctors Without Walls is so very grateful for the community that has helped us grow into an organization that has integrity, compassion, empathy, and is committed to serving the underserved. At a time when the world is undergoing so many changes on all levels of our society, Doctors Without Walls is committed to continuing to show up on the same day, at the same time, whenever needed.
Won’t you continue this journey with us?
Your financial support will enable Doctors Without Walls to purchase medical supplies, operate our Wrap Around Care Program that includes Medical Street Outreach, which now includes a Telemedicine platform, place based Medical Clinics, Women’s Free Homeless Clinic and Companion Care and help fund the operation of our Street Outreach medical van.
On behalf of all of us at Doctors Without Walls, thank you for recognizing our effort and for allowing us to continue to serve our community. We wish you and your family health, safety and continued well-being and want you to know that together, we can overcome all things.
Thank you for your continued support. You can make your donations by going to www.sbdww.org/donate or via Venmo - DoctorsWithoutWalls-SBSM.
Please take time to donate and help us keep our Santa Barbara community healthy and safe.
Regards,
Paul Jaconette, Board President
Maggie Sanchez, Executive Director
|
|
|
|
