Everyone assumes that in a rural health program is designed to serve residents in isolated, areas. But one of NCCF’s grantee organizations goes a step further by providing health care outreach to seasonal farm workers seen toiling in fields everywhere in Nelson County. The Blue Ridge Medical Center’s Rural Health Outreach Program (RHOP) sends a mobile medical unit with bilingual staff to area orchards. The health professionals assess and treat chronic medical conditions among the migrant workers on whom the orchards depend for their harvests. For some workers, it is the only medical care they can access. Orchard owners, who welcome migrants returning year after year, say the RHOP fills a vital need. Click here to read more about the RHOP in the September issue of Blue Ridge Life magazine.
