Phoenix Children's Hospital Crews'n Healthmobile Provides Health Care To Homeless Kids
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Phoenix Children's Hospital is providing free medical care to homeless children with their mobile clinics.
The 35-foot mobile unit is stocked with medicine and general vaccines.
The Crews’n Healthmobile’s mission is to provide free critical health care needs to homeless or at-risk youths and young adults, no matter their status.
Some of the children being treated do not have health insurance or are undocumented.
Dr. Gary Kirkilas is a pediatrician working on the mobile unit.
"A lot of these kids, they live in places where there is no health care, or they don’t have insurance, or they’re dealing with a lot of mental health issues, or they’re dealing with addictions and things like that, or their family is not present so they don’t have someone to take them to the doctor, so our answer is to basically bring the health care to them,” Kirkilas said.
The mobile clinics were launched in 2000 and in 2010, they also added three fixed-site clinics.
Stephon Tate, 19, received care on the mobile clinic recently.
“The people here, they treat you like you’re their first priority in giving you the help that you need,” Tate said. “It’s a really good thing to be on this bus.”
According to federal data, more than 24,000 public school students in Arizona experienced homelessness during the 2017-18 school year.
