Walk With The Docs returns April 10
By JIM FAILE
For the fifth consecutive year, walkers will take to the streets of Hartsville on April 10 to support the Free Medical Clinic of Darlington County with Walk With The Docs.
This year’s three-mile walk to raise funds for the clinic will begin in a different location than usual, at First Presbyterian Church on West Home Avenue. Walkers will proceed down Sixth Street to Carolina Avenue, walk Carolina to 10th Street where they will cross back to Home Avenue and proceed back to the church.
The event will begin at 10 a.m.
The walk will feature music to walk by, refreshments for all walkers, T-shirts for all registered walkers and recognition of walkers and sponsors.
Participants walk in honor of their favorite physician or health care provider. Hartsville doctors, nurse practitioners and nurses are invited to walk with other volunteers and community members to be models of healthy living through exercise and fresh air, said Kathy Baxley, executive director of the Free Medical Clinic of Darlington County.
Individual community members have offered help with the walk along with The Outdoor Club, a local men’s group that promotes outdoor sports for family activities in a safe and healthy environment.
Wagons and pets are welcome, and golf carts will be available for anyone who needs to take a break or who prefers to ride the three miles.
With offices in Hartsville and Darlington, the Free Medical Clinic is an interdenominational Christian ministry that provided medical care for about 800 eligible patients in Darlington County in 2009.
Last year, volunteer physicians provided 2,663 office visits and 10,894 medications through the clinic’s pharmacy and the efforts of free medication program volunteers.
“The clinic also invests in the individuals and families who come there by linking them to other resources not medically based for their individual needs like housing, food, employment with compassion and prayer,” Baxley said.
A separate walk will take place in Darlington on April 3 in support of the free clinic. The Lions Club of Darlington is hosting its first Diabetes Awareness Walk that day at 10 a.m.
“The Lions Club’s main focus is the prevention of the loss of sight, and because diabetes is the number one cause of blindness, the group knew helping the Free Medical Clinic of Darlington County was a perfect fit,” Baxley said. “The Free Medical Clinic has served diabetic patients in this county with great success.”
The Free Medical Clinic of Darlington County boasts an 85 percent rate of controlled diabetes in its patients compared to other free clinics around the state at 45 to 55 percent of control, Baxley said.
“This is accomplished by a management system put into place by our volunteer medical providers where our eligible patients are seen every three months after receiving labs from our area hospitals to keep the providers on the top treatment options,” she said.
An annual eye exam is ordered and optometrists in the county have agreed to provide appointments each month to monitor the effects of diabetes on each patient’s vision, she said.
If a patient receives a prescription for glasses, an application is completed and submitted to the Lions Club for help with the purchase of glasses, according to Baxley. “The Lions Club can also help with eye exams if we have more need than the volunteer eye doctors can provide,” she said.
The Diabetes Awareness Walk will begin on Public Square in downtown Darlington, proceed around the square and west on Pearl Street to Edwards Avenue, left on Edwards and south to Broad Street, then west to South Main Street and back to the square.
Free blood sugar and blood pressure screenings will be available for walk participants along with T-shirts for registered walkers. Music and refreshments will be available.