Back to Stories
Kuala Lumpur

More Than a Clinic: HBB Mobile Clinic for the Homeless/Urban Poor

February 26, 2017 (7 years ago)
Reading time: 3 minutes

HBB first started the Mobile Clinic project at Pusat Gelandangan Jalan Medan Tuanku, Kuala Lumpur back in November 2016 with the inspiration to learn about the welfare of our Homeless/Urban-Poor Community in KL (a.k.a KL Street Friends).

Homeless person in KL.

New to the scene, we first seek assistance and advice from two family medicine specialist (FMS) and one physician to provide our KL Street Friends with effective health care services. We also collaborated with the experience Need to Feed the Need, KL (NFN) to set up our mobile clinic project. Equipped with just 15 volunteers (10 non-medical officers and five medical officers) and the basic yet sufficient medical supplies (i.e. sphygmomanometer, blood glucose meter, medicine, etc.), HBB aims to perform basic health screening for all our KL Street Friends.

Our first day on the job was an experience worth remembering. What started as a small gathering gradually grew to a crowd of approximately 200 hungry KL Street Friends,lined up outside the fence. When the clock strikes half past eight, the door gate open and the crowd rushed in through the small gap for food.

Unfamiliar with HBB, the intrigued street friends circled aimlessly around us. ‘Apa ini?’ asked one brave friend. ‘Kami dari HBB dan kami datang untuk memberi bantuan perubatan.’ Still reluctant to have a medical check-up, they ask more about our services. We decided to show them the procedures to ease their fear.

Going to the Unknown
Photo by Fares Hamouche / Unsplash

We first took their height and weight before we lead them toother stations where we took their blood pressure and examine their glucose level. Along the process, we try to brief them about the importance of each procedure and how their health conditions were reflected on each reading. After the basic examinations, our street friends would go for a basic health consultation with our volunteer doctors. For mild cases, we would supply them with free medicine administered by professional doctors/pharmacists – and for advance/complicated cases, our doctors would refer them to a specialist.

HARD LIFE
Photo by Muhammad Muzamil / Unsplash

In between jobs, we took time to chat with some of them, eager to gain the reality of life in the streets. What knowledge we had of the Homeless/Urban-Poor community prior to this experience was shattered as we listen more to each story. Free and Easy are far from the truth. The KL Street Friends are not without jobs, as some of them own permanent day to day job with tiring hours and very little pay. The income they receive barely covers for their daily meal, let alone to rent a room in the KL city. Forced to live on the cold streets, they had to fought the harsh weather and overcome the deplorable conditions just to survive for another day.

Four trips later, we realize that each second spent with our KL Street friends was a journey for all of us to learn and share more with one another. Sharing our stories, we were reminded that good health and good company are two assets that we often overlook – and we should always say thanks for the good things in our life, no matter how bad the days are. Together with NFN we hope to provide more than just food or medical supplies to our KL Street Friends. We attempt to offer them service – a connection with the general public.

We hope to gain support for our efforts to relieve the daily burden of our KL Street Friends. As we are still at a humble stage, we seek for volunteer medical officers and non-medical officers to assist with our work. We also require sufficient donations, monetary or supplies to provide our KL street friends with the best health care – an effort to ease them from their daily tribulations living on the street. Together lets aim for a harmony and health community.

Together, we can change our world.

© 2012–2024 Hospitals Beyond Boundaries.

  • Webinar #2
  • Webinar #1
  • Careers
Hospitals Beyond Boundaries