As Mission of Mercy Pittsburgh prepares for its seventh free health care clinic set for just over a month from now, leaders and organizers have their work cut out for them.
Before the Nov. 1-2 event, they need to:
- Recruit more volunteers, particularly dentists and dental hygienists.
- Spread the word about the free dental, hearing and vision services available to children and adults who lack access to or cannot afford regular care.
What is making these tasks more difficult compared to prior years is all the political advertising has resulted in no television commercial time available for the organization. Political campaigns have reserved all the air time, according to Keith Young, chairman of Mission of Mercy Pittsburgh.
From surveys the group conducts each year with clinic participants, they know that a majority of the patients — 65% — find out about the event from television. TV ads remind volunteers, too, that the event is looming and it’s time to sign up to help.
In 2023, Mission of Mercy Pittsburgh served 1,702 patients and conducted 9,517 dental procedures, according to a news release. Additional services provided in 2023 included 825 eye exams, 752 pairs of free eyeglasses, 447 hearing exams and 274 sets of free hearing aids. All told, Mission of Mercy Pittsburgh delivered approximately $2.3 million in services last year with the help of 1,714 volunteers. The event provides care with no eligibility or insurance requirements, according to its website. It also will see people who live outside of Western Pennsylvania.
As of Wednesday, Young said the clinic had 650 volunteers, and he knows from experience that the event needs double that number.
Dental students and faculty can also volunteer, according to the news release. The clinic also needs nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians and physician assistants, lab techs and radiology professionals.
Dental professionals have an added incentive for volunteering, as dentists, dental hygienists and certified dental assistants can receive up to three hours of continuing education credits for their work with Mission of Mercy Pittsburgh, according to the news release. Senate Bill 1173, Dental Continuing Education Credits for Charitable Volunteerism, which was signed into law as Act 159, effective January 2023, allows up to three hours of volunteer dental, hygiene or dental assisting practice at a clinic or health center, or at an event or program offered by a charitable entity, to be credited toward a licensee or certificate holder’s continuing education program.
In a new incentive, patients may receive free electronic blood pressure cuffs this year. The clinic completed a test run giving out the devices in 2023 in partnership with the American Heart Association. Last year 257 people received the cuffs.
“The number of people we find with diabetes and high blood pressure is really amazing. We try to educate people on high blood pressure,” Young said. Giving out the cuffs with how to self-monitor with those devices last year was part of that effort.
Patients don’t need to go through medical triage if they need hearing or vision care, but they do for dental procedures. That’s because in addition to dental exams, cleanings, minor restorative fillings and oral hygiene instruction, volunteer dentists also perform extractions, root canal treatments on select teeth, and a limited number of temporary partial dental appliances.
Right now Young is predicting the clinic will see 1,500 patients over the two days. And it’s not just homeless people who seek care, he stressed, as families hit hard by inflation since the last clinic need help, too. “We do get people who have to make decisions: ‘Do I pay the mortgage, get food for the kids to eat or get dental care?’ That’s the audience we definitely want to reach.”
In the surveys taken at last year’s clinic, the number that stood out to Young was that 71% of people seeking dental care had been living with pain. “That’s an amazing number,” he said. “Of that, 12% had dental pain for over a month or over a year. That’s the problem.”
The clinic also asks if they had sought care at an emergency room, and 54% said they had. “They don’t solve the [dental] problem in the ER,” he continued. “They give them some help with [painkilling] drugs. … [And it] backs up the ER.”
UMPC and Highmark like and support the work of Mission of Mercy Pittsburgh for a number of reasons, Young said, but both know the event helps ease the crush of patients in their emergency rooms.
The organization also provides patients with aftercare information and directions. Young said the clinic pushes follow-up treatment, and organizers know that 200 people did seek just that.
Young said that the aftercare comes from partner organizations. Mission of Mercy Pittsburgh works with federally qualified health care centers, and he is aware of 50 in Western Pennsylvania. Three Rivers Alliance group works with a number of those centers, he said, and those facilities can see clinic patients. Twenty have dental facilities, although they are small, with one or two dental chairs. Catholic Charities, another partner, will move its operations soon to its new building on the Boulevard of the Allies, Downtown. Aftercare there is free for a period of time. It will have six to 11 chairs at the new space, which Young said “is tremendous for us.”
Aftercare for vision and hearing is handled through UPMC’s Eye and Ear Institute, which schedules people for follow-up appointments right at the event.
The challenge remains, though, to get people to keep those appointments as a variety of reasons holds them back. “It can be a challenge for people to come,” Young said. “We are getting better at [aftercare and ongoing care].”
Significant returning sponsors for this year’s event include UPMC, Highmark, TeleTracking Technologies, PNC and the Oakledge Foundation, he said. Many other donors and sponsors are listed on the Mission of Mercy Pittsburgh website.
The organization is working with a marketing and PR agency to create awareness of the event through billboards, radio and bus stop ads. It will also use social media to reach volunteers and patients and is working on finalizing a campaign. The crunch to reach patients starts on Oct. 14, Young said.
What’s left as well is finalizing registration and other systems used at the two-day clinic. “Most of the planning is done,” the chairman said. “It’s getting that human resource that we need and then getting patients to the event.”
Young and the others who lead and staff the event know the work will all be worth it, and that work is very gratifying. All they need to do is look at past exit survey data. “We have a 99% satisfaction rate,” he said. “We train our volunteers to treat these people with respect. It can be tough because they are getting treatment. If [patients] know people enjoy working with them, they appreciate that.”
He is personally uplifted with what he experiences during the clinic’s two days. “When you see the smiles, hear their stories, [watch as] people can see again and [see] kids getting the glasses they need …. It’s all about community.
“Our theme this year is Rise Above. With so much divisiveness, this is something that is completely the opposite to that. We all come together to get a mission done.”
Helen is a copy editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but she's currently on strike. Contact her at hfallon@unionprogress.com.