Day 6 of the Department of Public Health’s Guam Innovative Readiness Training Medical Mission saw the agency continue the effort to offer free healthcare services. KUAM News went inside the University of Guam Calvo Field House to experience why this service is important for our community. 

Some military medical volunteers were slightly intimidated, to say the least, by the number of residents lining up at the Department of Defense’s guam innovative readiness training medical mission for almost the past week. 

Physician Dr. Joseph D’Angelo said, "Remember we’re soldiers so were used to seeing high stress environments, in other context, particularly in combat. In this case, I love at that and go, boy that’s big, that’s intimidating but you know, we’re going to do a great turn for the community so it’s like, bring on the challenge."

Partnering with Public Health and other federal partners, Day 6 of the medical mission, that’s open to those who have medicaid, MIP, or are uninsured, had another large set of residents from all across the island lining up for free healthcare services such as dental, vision, physicals, and vaccinations. 

Dededo resident Jianna Navarro was with her 3-year-old son Xavier and her cousin Keith Dela Cruz at the event. She said that insurance on the island can not only be difficult to come by, but very costly and because she and her family don't have insurance, they go to these medical events as much as they can whenever they pop up to get all their health needs met. 

Jianna said, "For some it’s not approved or our job doesn't have it available, working part time or full time. I do understand some factors of the job that they apply for, it's hard for them to get a insurance company or the insurance company doesn't provide that sort of healthcare that the worker needs. The person you know, most people have families, they do need the family insurance, which costs a lot of money. Yeah, you know, money is such a huge factor, we need help to pay for cars. just hard to add medical into that situation."

Dela Cruz said, "It's difficult, because money is such a big factor, for your insurance, to go into dental, for example, or to get shots, everything costs money."

Navarro said she tried to get medicaid for her and her son, but the process she says was difficult. "They didn't get back to us. As soon as possible. We always had to call them and they'd be like, well let you know but it just never happened," she said.

Sinajana resident Travis Vincent agreed with Navarro and Dela Cruz on how money plays a huge part in weighing in the necessity of healthcare insurance. "When you make minimum wage in the private sector you have, you're making like 10 $10 An hour, still not enough to cover all that," he shared.

Asked if he would still take the healthcare if his job offered it, he replied, "I wouldn’t because that's basically taking about anywhere from $700 to $800 a month just on insurance alone." He said they'd use the money to pay rent for utilities, food, cars, pretty much everything that necessary to get by.

Although he and his family are under Medicaid, he says there’s still many limitations, even the process to set up a doctor’s appointment can take longer than it should. "You would have to get approval first and that takes a few days to get the approval letters and then you have to find a clinic that takes in Medicaid patients," he explained. "It takes a longer process."

"It could be anywhere from a couple of days to about a week, depending on the approval."

Asked if his family is sick, how would that work, he said, "It's a kind of stress is the… it takes a stress on your brain, because then you have to find a way to get the immediate care that you need. But then again, you have to go through a process that takes a little longer."

Although Dr. D'angelo was not aware of the full context of how healthcare is on the island, he knew that guam is considered to be an “underserved area.” He said, "Much like Guam, I live in Hawaii and we’re very underserved there and we have a lot of issues like the shortage of doctors so unlike some of my colleagues that come from the mainland, more typical environments, I really empathize and understand what it’s like here to have limitations."

As of news time, the medical mission has assisted over 2,500 people for the past five days, according to Colonel Andrea Bower. The medical mission will continue until August 10 at the UOG Calvo Field House from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Bower, the officer in charge highly encourages residents to stop by and take advantage of all the free healthcare services as well as help them get outside services once the mission is complete. "It’s very important that we provide the follow up care and we partner up with the Guam Department of Public Health and making sure that the services that we provide, the 10 days we’re here that we also make that connect with the community partners so that we can have persons seeking help here can also seek care within the community," she said.