FAISON, North Carolina—Goshen Medical Center is traveling across Eastern North Carolina providing medical care to rural residents at work, at school and where they live.

Goshen took delivery five heave duty diesel trucks equipped with mobile generators and eight mobile medical trailers and immediately hit the road to serve 12 rural counties in the Tar Heel State.

In order to play school sponsored sports all students, enrolled in North Carolina Schools, are required to take a sports physical.

The cost of the physical is normally in the range of $50 in North Carolina. The chore of taking the child athletes normally falls on the parents.

Goshen is relieving the parents of this burden by bringing one of their mobile medical units to schools and providing the physicals for free.

According to Goshen Medical Center Community Outreach Coordinator Carrie Lane, Goshen has provided over 15 thousand free sports physicals since taking delivery of the medical trailers in 2022.

The medical center is mindful of the classes and working schedules of the population they serve. They will often visit sites to provide care after normal working hours.

Arriving after the sun has set Goshen will provide physicals for temporary agriculture workers between the hours of 7 to 11 p.m.

The Goshen mobile Team is working to provide physicals to local businesses. They have agreements to have their trailers at their locations so the employees can rotate out to the trailers, be seen and report back to work with minimal impact to the business or the employees paid time off to see a doctor for a routine annual visit.

The hours are not consistent or typical. Driving to where their services are requested.

“Our units are on the road three to five days a week all over 12 counties,” said Goshen Medical Center Director of Operations Lance Davis.

Goshen is working to provide care to the homeless community in their coverage area. To address the medical needs of the homeless population in their service area Goshen has dispatched their trailers to encampments. While there the Team provides medical exams and provides basic care to the displaced residents. 

Rural Development State Director Reginald Speight was excited when the mobile medical units were delivered in May 2022.

“Rural Development is excited to participate in this unique investment to enhance the health of rural residents,” he said during the delivery ceremony. “Goshen Medical Center is thinking outside the box to make the most to outfit these mobile medical units. I am looking forward to hearing about the benefits of these trailers across Duplin and the surrounding areas.”

Two years later he is amazed at the accomplishments the Goshen Team is achieving.

“Goshen Medical Center is a fined tuned operation with the use of these medical units,” said Speight during a recent visit to Goshen Medical Center’s Faison headquarters. “Their work is just incredible.”

Goshen Medical funded the $1.6 million purchase of these medical caravans through USDA’s Community Facility Loan and Grant Program.

The USDA Community Facilities program provides affordable funding to develop essential community facilities in rural areas. An essential community facility is defined as a facility that provides an essential service to the local community for the orderly development of the community in a primarily rural area, and does not include private, commercial or business undertakings.

According to the Goshen Medical Center Website, Goshen Medical Center, Inc. (GMC) is a private, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization as well as a federally qualified community and migrant health center organization, that has served the residents of eastern North Carolina since 1979. The health center’s mission is to improve the lives of each and every one of our patients through quality health care.

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