More than 1,000 people take advantage of Manatee’s 2016 RAM event

EAST MANATEE Wearing his trademark, always neatly pressed, tan Remote Area Medical uniform, Stan Brock stood smiling and nodding just inside the sun-splashed doors of Manatee Technical College on State Road 70 in East Manatee like a pastor greeting people coming into his church.

One would have thought that Brock, the founder of Remote Area Medical USA, which has put on more than 800 free medical clinics around the nation including the just-concluded Manatee RAM, would have already headed back to Tennessee after assuring that Manatee was on track with no major problems.

But there he was all throughout the clinic’s final day on Sunday, standing by the intake door greeting, guiding, wanting to get one or two more souls through the door on top of the 130 patients who were already in the patient pipeline for vision, dental and medical care.

“Today is a short day and a lot of the doctors are going to leave around mid-day, so we have to be careful not to raise too many expectations and not be able to see the people,” Brock said Sunday of the 30 or 40 who arrived late.

“I am just sorry we can’t see all of them,” Brock added, his face showing a mixture of sadness and despair. “That is the hardest part of this operation, having to turn people away.”

Patient count about 500 lower than 2015

When it was all over, the 2016 RAM drew 1,065 patients from Friday to Sunday at MTC and, despite his worry, Brock did find a way to get nearly 100 percent of Sunday’s final patients in to see doctors.

RAM’s debut in Manatee in 2015 produced 1,600 patients in two days, Brock said.

Brock was not sure why the Manatee numbers were lower this year. It could be that some of Manatee’s medically needy had their most pressing dental needs met at last year’s RAM.

But, whatever fueled the decline, Brock said Manatee still has a great need for free vision, dental and medical services and he didn’t hesitate when asked if RAM will return to Manatee next year.

“We will return next year and we will also bring the pet clinic back,” said Brock, referring to the successful one-day dog and cat clinic at Braden River High School.

“I’ve been standing here for the last three days watching people as they have come in and we are seeing a high percentage of people who are clearly in need of services,” Brock added. “We are seeing a lot of children here in Manatee. We are seeing a lot of Hispanic people.”

Brock lived with the Wapishana indigenous people of the upper Amazon in the 1950s and 1960s. Thirty-one years ago, he decided to put together an organization to bring airborne medical relief to that tribe.

Now, he estimates that roughly 47 million Americans live below the poverty line and, like the tribe-members, also need medical help. The word “remote” in RAM, named for the Amazon, is now an ironic reminder of how things have changed.

“There should be more people like him around,” RAM patient John Fuller from Largo said of Brock.

Fuller, who had multiple teeth extracted Saturday, was getting eye glasses on Sunday.

“It’s really tough to get good care these days and humanitarians like Stan are few and far between,” Fuller said. “If he doesn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize or some kind of humanitarian award something is wrong.”

This story was originally published November 13, 2016 at 4:57 PM with the headline "More than 1,000 people take advantage of Manatee’s 2016 RAM event."