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A UMNS Feature
By Allysa Adams*
6:00 A.M. ET Dec.14, 2011 | PHOENIX (UMNS)
Dr. Randy Christensen climbed behind the wheel of a big, blue RV and
guided it through the streets of Phoenix, giving new meaning to the term
“house call.”
“I tell everybody that I have the best job in the world. I love coming
to work and taking care of homeless kids,” said Christensen, medical
director of Crews ‘n Healthmobile, a mobile unit for homeless teens.
Once parked, Christensen and his team of nurses, caseworkers and medical
residents got to work. A few of them hit the streets for places they
know homeless young adults hang out to let them know the doctor was in.
Most of the teens found their way on their own.
The mobile unit is based at the United Methodist Outreach Ministries New Day Centers,
where the staff of the Healthmobile also sees patients at a clinic.
However, they cannot reach the teens on the street unless they go
mobile.
“I always felt a real strong desire to help those that were homeless. It
just amazes me that we all live in a society that has so many wonderful
things,” Christensen said. “We all have so much to give, and yet there
are children and teenagers … sleeping on the street. And deep down to my
core, that just feels wrong to me.”
House calls without a house
Five days a week, the mobile clinic is on the go because of the huge
need for this team to make house calls to those without homes.
“How ya doing?” Christensen asked one young man in an exam room as he
maneuvered around a nurse trying to check blood pressure. It’s a tight
squeeze, but Christensen said he prefers the narrow hallways and small
exam rooms of the mobile unit to a more traditional clinical setting.
A young man named Brian comes in for a checkup. He wears a pink bathrobe and complains that his feet hurt.
Many cases, like Brian’s, appear easy to treat.
“We see a lot of the same things that everybody else goes to the doctor
for … coughs and colds and flu, maybe some asthma, maybe some skin
infections,” Christensen said.
However, these patients sometimes have histories that make their medical needs more acute.
“We find out on top of all of that asthma and skin infections and ear
infections and what-not, there’s tragedy. Whether that’s abuse or
neglect, violence, rape, all those terrible, horrible things that you
can’t even imagine go on,” Christensen said.
“We learn very early that we address those things that they come in for,
but we have to be very broad-minded in how we address their holistic
health.”
Cierra Lundberg is waiting for her turn with the Crews’n Healthmobile.
The 22-year-old has been coughing a lot lately and has not seen a doctor
in years.
“I was homeless for three years, and I worked really hard to get an
apartment. I got a job, and then I got laid off, and I lost my
apartment,” Lundberg said. “I worked so hard to get that, so I’m like
super upset. So I’ve been pretty much couch surfing for the last year.”
Christensen examined Lundberg and explained to her that she probably has
an infection. While she is here, Lundberg also asks about getting
glasses and talks about other issues she faces.
Huge challenges
Many of the young adults the mobile unit staff sees are dealing with huge challenges.
“Mental health diagnoses are about three to four times that of the
general population,” Christensen said. “Maybe one in 10 are hearing
voices or having visual hallucinations. Maybe 40 percent have attempted
suicide in the last six months. Probably 80 percent of them are abusing
some substance.”
These are tough problems. Christensen and his team know they will not
change everyone overnight. However, in the 10 years it has been out
here, the crew has helped many teens get off the streets. Christensen
has written about those years in a new book, Ask Me Why It Hurts.
“We have lots of people that now have great stories to tell,”
Christensen said. “There’s some in college, and we have 20-some people
that are in nursing school, and we have so many people doing some
fantastic things.”
With all the issues this team sees every day, their biggest challenge is changing perceptions outside the RV.
“The truth is these kids have some horrible stories, and they’re
surviving. They’re out there living in these places that you or I could
never hope to survive a couple of nights, much less years,” Christensen
said. “So I think my biggest priority and my biggest dream is to
continue to educate people on how worthwhile these kids are, how
terrible their life has been before, but just how much of success they
can have if just given half a chance.”
A chance they get in the big, blue RV.
*Adams is a freelance writer and producer in Phoenix.
News media contact, Fran Coode Walsh, Nashville, Tenn. (615)-742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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