For over 30 years, Martin County Healthy Start Coalition has provided expectant mothers support to ensure their babies are born healthy and happy. Now the organization is taking its services on the road.
The new Maternity on the Move (MOM) Mobile is a 38-foot, brightly colored Winnebago RV that travels four days a week throughout Martin County to provide prenatal and postnatal care to underserved communities in areas including Golden Gate, East Stuart, Indiantown, and Hobe Sound. The mobile unit is staffed by two certified nurse midwives and a medical assistant, who are fluent in English, Spanish, and Creole.
“People who are not going to their prenatal visits are not doing it out of neglect,” says Samantha Suffich, CEO of Martin County Healthy Start Coalition. “It is really hard to juggle a job and kids and transportation.” Suffich explains that women in some areas of Hobe Sound, for example, would have to take three different buses to get to the Florida Community Health Centers Stuart location, the primary Medicaid-based center in the area…