HURON — Seven in 10 people who live in rural areas of Ohio say they have inadequate access to health care, and one out of every five say they must travel 20 miles or 50 minutes for health care services. Insurance is often another challenge.
However, a pediatric clinic is on the move to break down those barriers for Ohio families in Huron and Erie counties.
No child left behind is the motto for a pediatric clinic called Peds on Wheelz. Nurse practitioner and founder of Peds on Wheelz Mandy Johnson saw a need for a traveling clinic in Sandusky.
"There's not much public transportation in Sandusky so we had a lot of patients that were not being seen because of transportation. So, we just went to them and all they had to do was send me a text on my work phone, and we could go to their house,” Johnson said.
Johnson says that since 2017, they have been able to help 9,500 patients. Their goal is to keep families out of the ER as much as possible and give access to as many kids in the area—especially those who are under-insured or uninsured.
“90 percent of the kids that we see have Medicaid insurance, there are not many pediatricians that will take Medicaid insurance,” Johnson said.
In addition to the mobile clinic and Pediatrician Dr. Robert Johnson, they built a walk-in clinic for people who wanted to visit an office. The clinic offers many services to the community, including sick visits, immunizations, lab draws, point-of-care testing, pulmonary functions testing and point-of-care-testing.
“Access to care is huge and we don’t turn anyone away for inability to pay, there’s a lot of kids that would go without care at all if we weren't able to go to them. And it's just been great for the communities because we've been able to increase immunization rates,” Nurse Practitioner Lauren Binks said.
This year, they expanded their office to Huron County in order to reach more families in rural areas.
"Driving to Sandusky if we needed to was sometimes out of the question; now that it's in Norwalk it’s helpful. Even though they do come to your house, there's still things you need to come in for,” said parent Tori Messenber.
Messenber and other parents claim other clinics in the area are not as reliable.
"The one that sees children isn't available all the time so if she would be sick, I would call to get an appointment and they would sometimes say no one's here today that sees children. And those are the things that we were running into,” Amy Shutt, a parent, said.
Shutt says Peds on Wheelz gives the community a sense of relief.
“We feel like family when we're here, and every concern we have is always heard and addressed,” Shutt said.
The Cleveland Browns donated tickets to the clinic, giving the chance for one lucky family to go to a game.
“My entire family of six was able to go to the Cleveland Browns games and we had a great time,” Messenber said.
Johnson says they plan to expand their services to Williard, Clyde and Fremont. Making sure families are not limited in healthcare.
