Untitled Rural Healthcare Documentary

In rural communities that span from Western North Carolina to Southwest Virginia to Eastern Tennessee, there is a vast medical desert. In the decade between 2009 and 2019, hundreds of rural hospitals were shuttered; of the remaining facilities, 40% are considered to be at “immediate” or “high risk” of closing. In a region where residents already live far from healthcare, such closures leave thousands stranded without accessible medical care.

But medical providers and patients in these communities are resilient. The providers – predominantly women – include Drs. Teresa Tyson and Paula Hill-Collins, energetic “BFFs” who traverse the mountains of Appalachia, advocating for the underserved and providing medical care from their bus, the “Health Wagon”; Sister Mariana Koonce MD, a nun, former sailor, and current big rig driver of her own mobile healthcare unit, attending to physical as well as spiritual well-being; and Dr. Lovie Stallworth, once a single mother on food stamps, now compelled to care for others in that position, whose preventative care allows her patients to avoid devastating trips to the ER.

These tenacious and dedicated doctors care for patients like Linda and Teresa, a mother and daughter whose shared laughter is unstoppable, even when they have to cross state lines to address Linda’s chronic cough. They represent four generations of uninsured women. Teresa fears her granddaughter will grow up “just as sick and in need as we are”; she is determined to work as many jobs as required to provide for her family. And then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

For these communities, a lack of ventilators, hospital beds, and PPE was not the result of pandemic; it was already the norm. Appalachia’s hurdles continue as people seek the vaccine, often without access to the internet. What’s more, the mobile clinics and local, independent pharmacies that play a critical role in rural healthcare have been slow to receive the vaccine. Frustrated, Dr. Teresa of the Health Wagon goes on television to pressure the Virginia state government into providing doses to its rural counties. Despite it all, patients and providers continue struggling and supporting each other – only now it is amidst a once-in-a-century pandemic.