and other community volunteers
The grounds of the Vivien Vanterpool Primary School, at Island Harbour, were busy on Saturday, 7th March, as over three hundred persons from across the island turned out during the course of the day to avail themselves of the services of a free medical clinic.
The Clinic, the third of its kind, was organized by Dr. Ellis Lorenzo Webster in collaboration with the Anguilla Community Action Network (ACAN) and the St. James School of Medicine.
Dr. Clyde L. Bryan, Internist and Chief Physician at The Atlantic Star Centre of Medical Excellence, in South Hill, was among the team of some eight visiting doctors assisted by a number of medical students from the St. James School of Medicine.
Speaking to The Anguillian newspaper, late Saturday afternoon, Dr. Webster said persons were pleased with the type of services that were provided at the Clinic.
“Certainly I have quite a number of prescriptions that I have to make sure persons go and get the testing needed, and then the followups. That is what we do,” he added.
Dr. Webster thanked ACAN (The Anguilla Community Action Network), the medical students from the St. James Medical School, as well as the volunteers from the community, for their efforts in ensuring the success of the medical clinic.
As regards the medical students, Dr. Webster was of the view that it was a learning experience for them. “It was good to get them involved in the community because, too often, we hear that there are medical students here and we don’t see them interacting with the people.”
He continued: “What we would like to see in the future is that we extend their two years to four years so that they can get their clinical experience here – and even advance to residency programmes here. These are the things that we think are possible. We have to start somewhere and this is a good place to start.”
CEO and Director of ACAN, John ‘Pow’ Lake, thanked everyone for coming out and supporting the Clinic, in particular members of his organisation. He said the clinic was ACAN’s first exposure like this, especially with so many health professionals from overseas, and that he looked forward to working with Dr. Webster on similar initiatives in the future.
