BRAZOS COUNTY, Texas — Texas is the highest uninsured rate in the nation with almost 20% of our population living without health insurance.
In the Brazos Valley, about one in four people are without insurance.
That's where Health For All, an organization that has been there for Brazos Valley residents for over 30 years, comes into play.
“We are a community based free clinic for low income uninsured so i tell people to think of us as doctors without borders on a local level and we basically become their primary care home and provide them with their medical care and preventative eservices and recently we've been working really hard to provide dental and oral health to that as well,” explained Executive Director, of Health For All, Elizabeth Dickey.
With dental aid being scarce for the low-income community, Health For All has proven to be a resource willing to expand their reach. Additionally, they were recently able to provide a Bryan resident with a life changing dental procedure.
“One of our success stories that we’re really proud of, we had a young man that has had a tough life and has made choices he regrets and is working to kind of turn things around," said Dicky. "He is a recovering drug addict, but he's clean and sober now, but there was a lot of damage done to his teeth. They were rotted through and he essentially had to have everything pulled all of his teeth needed to be replaced and he needed dentures.”
Dental health affects more areas of life than we think and health for all is making sure no one feels left behind.
“It is a huge barrier to everything from applying for a job to speaking and eating all of the things that we kind of take for granted our everyday occurrences but we worked together with local dentists and the Blinn program and were able to get him the procedures he needed and the dentures,” says Dickey.