Military brings no-cost medical services to north Arkansas

A member of the U.S. Air Force administers and eye exam to an Arkansas patient during a wellness Innovative Readiness Training in Yellville in July 2023. (Screenshot of B-roll from Senior Airman Tylon Chapman, 307th Bomb Wing)

Military personnel are providing no-cost medical, optometry, dental and veterinary services through July 25 at clinics in Jasper and Kingston as part of a training mission.

The U.S. Department of Defense is partnering with the Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District to present Ozark Wellness Innovative Readiness Training. IRT missions, which can also focus on things like civil engineering, cybersecurity and transportation, provide training opportunities to increase soldiers’ deployment readiness while providing key services to U.S. communities, according to the Department of Defense’s website .

While it takes time and coordination to set up these missions, Tina Cole, the Northwest Economic Development District’s community development coordinator, said they’ve “become near and dear to my heart because there’s really no downside to it.”

Services are especially needed in Madison and Newton counties where residents, many of whom are below the poverty level, have to drive to neighboring counties to access a hospital, Cole said.

The poverty rate is 16.5% in Madison County and 19.4% in Newton County, according to the U.S. Census Bureau . Lee County in the state’s Delta region has Arkansas’ highest poverty rate at 35%.

“This is just an opportunity that we’ve found that is so beneficial for our communities to bring quality health care opportunities for them at no cost,” Cole said.

Bringing an IRT mission to a region is like a grant process — a community entity must submit a request and show a need for specific services, Public Affairs Officer Lieutenant Colonel Kristin Porter said.

For IRT Ozark Wellness, Porter said the Department of Defense matched NWAEDD’s request for medical services with the Army Reserve and units from the 807th Medical Command (Deployment Support).

Then began a year-long process of identifying the need and working on logistics, including providing bed-down and shower sites for soldiers. About 100 Army Reservists will be split between the two sites this year, Porter said.

The NWA economic development agency partnered with the Air Force Reserve, Army Reserve and the Delta Regional Authority to conduct an IRT in Yellville last summer that provided over $700,000 worth of no-cost medical and veterinary care to more than 1,500 patients. Porter said they hope to exceed those numbers this year.

The Delta Regional Authority also brought a no-cost medical care mission to communities across Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi in 2021, according to training mission archives .

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Cole said the first medical mission she applied for took place in 2017 in Marshall, Mountain Home and Yellville. That event provided more than $686,000 in services to nearly 3,900 patients, she said.

This week’s clinics will be at the Jasper School District’s campuses in Jasper and Kingston. There will be limited services on Tuesday and Wednesday due to a delay in supplies, but staff should be at full strength by Thursday, Cole said.

The significance of these training missions are two-fold, Porter said. First, they are primarily conducted by Reserve units as their two-week annual training requirement, and they allow healthcare providers to work with real patients.

The second is “the significant benefit to the community,” Porter said. All services are provided at no cost, and there’s no requirement for an ID, insurance or online sign up “that could possibly disadvantage other people,” she said.

Going on an IRT mission is one of the most coveted annual training missions, Porter said, “but it’s primarily the feeling of helping a community” that keeps soldiers volunteering for the missions.

“I’ve heard more stories than I can count from dentists helping a patient who has had a toothache for years and are finally without pain, and people bringing in their beloved pets for vaccines or spay/neuter,” she said. “But my favorite was an optometrist talking about an elderly woman who cried when she was finally able to see when she received a new pair of glasses.”

More information about the Ozark Wellness IRT is available here .

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