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The Activist Beat with Rose Aguilar, host of Your Call on KALW in San Francisco is a weekly roundup of progressive activism that the mainstream media ignores, undercovers, or misrepresents.

I’m Rose Aguilar, host of Your Call on KALW in San Francisco with this week’s Activist Beat for Uprising. Each week I’ll bring you a weekly roundup of progressive activism that the mainstream media ignores, undercovers, or misrepresents.

Back in August, 2009, Uprising brought you a special report about Remote Area Medical (RAM), a traveling health clinic that offers free medical, dental, and vision care. When Stan Brock started RAM in 1985, he never thought his services would be needed in the United States.

RAM began as an all-volunteer mobile medical clinic that provided free healthcare to people living in the remote areas of the Amazon rainforest. In 1992, he was asked to bring the clinic to Knoxville, Tennessee. He was shocked by what he saw. People were in need of the most basic care.

RAM has been traveling the country ever since. They just finished a four-day clinic at the Oakland Coliseum. It was RAM’s 663rd clinic. Patients used to line-up at midnight to get free care, but because the demand is so great, it’s not uncommon to see people in line at 3:30pm to get care the next day. Twelve hours later, at 3:30am, RAM gives out about 800 numbers. If you’re #801, you’ll have to come back and try again. The process begins at 5am.

In the richest country on earth, people are waiting in line for at least 15 hours to get their teeth and eyes examined. As the Supreme Court hears arguments the healthcare case and the debate rages on, it’s important to emphasize the fact that dental and vision are not covered by most insurance plans.

I spent the day at the clinic on Friday. Pamela Congdon, president of RAM California, which was just formed in September, says it takes about six months to raise the $175,000 needed to run a four-day clinic. About 3200 patients are served and over $1 million worth of services are provided. Congdon is hoping to raise enough money to buy 20 dental chairs and a vision lab. Because the demand is so great, RAM California is hoping to run weekend clinics and travel to the state’s rural areas.

Each clinic relies on about 2,000 volunteers. Most show up at 5am, leave in the evening, and return the next day. They’re some of the most dedicated and caring people I’ve ever met. This form of humanitarian activism deserves far more attention. If you want to see what the clinic looks like, just do a quick search for Remote Area Medical. It’s an incredible operation. You can also find a video I took at least year’s Oakland clinic at uprisingradio.org.

The large dental room is filled with about a hundred chairs, dentists, hygienists, trays, equipment, and a very busy sterilization area. I met 49-year-old Sharon Williams, a former postal worker who was hurt on the job 12 years ago. She hasn’t had her teeth cleaned since. She’s still fighting for disability benefits and has no healthcare. She had a dental exam, got new eye glasses, saw a chiropractor, and had acupuncture.

In the vision area, I met 19-year-old Gee McNeil. Gee hasn’t had her eyes checked since she was in elementary school. Her vision is so bad, she walks around in a blur. She used to sit in the front row of her classroom so she could see the chalkboard. Her teachers used to tell her to get glasses, but her family couldn’t afford the exam. She was elated when her glasses arrived. She said, “I can finally see.”

These are just two of the many stories I heard throughout the day and into the evening. Most of the people I met either have jobs or were hurt on the job. Several have health insurance, but it doesn’t cover dental and vision.

While it was heartening to see people scream with joy because they can finally see, or shed tears while telling me how well the volunteers treated them, it’s outrageous that in a country with so much wealth, this clinic is needed in the first place. Over the next few months, RAM will be in Sacramento, California, Bristol, Tennessee, Pikeville, Kansas, Wise County, Virginia, and Oklahoma City.

According to founder Stan Brock, you can close your eyes and stick a pin on the US map and go there. You’ll find thousands of people that need services. The fact is, we’re still seeing people dying of bad teeth in this country. This says it all. “I’d like to see us work ourselves out of a job so we can concentrate our efforts where we began, in places like the Amazon and Haiti, of course, but we’re bogged down here in the United States, I think, for years and years to come.”

You can find my video interview with Stan Brock at uprisingradio.org.