Holiday Greeting from Amy, Marjorie, Brenda and Susan at the VIM national office!!!

The Gift of Health

Midway between our politically determined Thanksgiving holiday and our church proclaimed Christmas, perhaps we can meditate on the new situation of the gift of health.

Students of the depression, and to a lesser extent of previous recessions, comment not just on the economic consequences of the loss of wages or investments, but on the loss of the sense of purpose and loss of dignity that accompanies such trauma.

The American College of Emergency Physicians reported last week that the economic downturn has converted overworked emergency rooms into sanctuaries bursting at the seams. It reported on stories such as a mother bringing two young children to the emergency room because there was no place else to get them care. The necessary triage pushes those with apparently less serious illness or injury into longer cues. Dignity is once more sacrificed.

Formerly middle and working class, the now unemployed this Christmas may find their way to these emergency rooms where no less a source than our current President represented that health care was available for all. Those waiting for hours for such care, whether emergent, urgent or otherwise, are casualties of a social failure. More individual, personal distress is due to hundreds of thousands of individual failures in the pursuit of the American dream of home ownership.

While Congress and administration now embark on the largest socialist gamble American society has ever seen, the middle class becomes poor and workers become pauperized. Individual health care depends more than ever on social care and political will.

Our Executive Director, Amy Hamlin, reports that our clinics are seeing a 30% increase in demand for services with an approximate 20% decrease in funding. If ever there was a season to honor and support those valiant volunteers, we have just stumbled into it. It is there where a healthy dose of caring and friendship and dignity are dispensed along with the expertise and meds.

May we as VIM find the courage and the will and the expertise to contribute to the social solution while supporting those who are meeting the desperate needs of our new suffering as well as the perennially suffering.

As we accept these challenges, may the spirit and good will that characterize this season fuel our resolve and our efforts.

Promoting Volunteers in Medicine

Help us spread the word about your clinic and the collective work VIM is doing for the uninsured across the country.  Here is what you can do:

• When talking with the media, we ask that you share with the reporter that your clinic is part of Volunteers in Medicine, a national network of free health care clinics that use retired and practicing medical professionals and community volunteers to provide care to the uninsured.  The national office is also available to provide a national perspective on the issue of the uninsured and the VIM movement.

• Please send us heart-warming stories of how VIM is changing the lives of patients and/or stories of “hometown heroes” who are making a difference in your community.  These five to ten-sentence descriptions will be shared with our PR consultant who may pitch them to the press in an effort to generate awareness about Volunteers in Medicine.  Once a reporter becomes interested in the story, we will put them in contact with your clinic.  This is a great way to generate awareness for your clinic with little work on your part.    

• If you have not done so already, we ask that you include a link from your website to our new site at www.volunteersinmedicine.org.  This increases the potential of generating website traffic for both organizations.      

We have heard from many clinics that demand for services is up and revenues are down during this challenging economic environment.  We believe that successful PR during this period is essential to maintain or even increase funding for your clinic.

PR Update from the National Office

The national office is beginning to see positive results in response to our on-going public relations efforts with Elizabeth Davis, a PR consultant we began working with earlier this summer. Increasing visibility of VIM is beneficial to the national office, VIM clinics, and the VIM movement.

A VNR (video news release) has been developed and distributed to a targeted set of national media outlets. A special “thank you” to VIM Monroe County and the Parker Family Health Center for the video footage they contributed to this project. By collaborating with these clinics we were able to keep the production costs low.

This informational video which speaks to the mission of VIM can be viewed by visiting the Press Room page on our website. For those interested in using this multipurpose video, copies are also available from the national office.

Some examples of local response to national PR include:

• The Fayetteville Observer featured a story on a retired physician who volunteers at the Scotland Community Health Clinic in Laurinburg, North Carolina

• The Indianapolis Star highlighted Dr. Rajih Haddawi, the past chairman of the board of VIM Monroe County in Bloomington, Indiana, in a health care Q&A article.

Upcoming VIM Alliance Activity

An audio education conference on Planned Giving is scheduled for February. Be sure to watch your email inbox for details.

News from VIM Alliance Clinics

We invite VIM Alliance members to share your stories about successful fundraising events, clinical programs, awards, and other news items of interest. Please send your news stories to skelley@vimi.org so that we may consider them for publication in our newsletter. Thank you.

VIM Hilton Head

Community VIM

Lakeland VIM

VIM of Monroe County

Centre VIM