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Mobile Medical Units Help Deliver Women’s Healthcare in Rural Southeast Texas [1]

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Date: 2025-07-14

In order to address gaps in women’s healthcare in rural parts of Southeast Texas, the Hope Women’s Resource Clinic uses a “mobile medical unit” – an RV converted into a clinic that provides various prenatal care – free of charge.

The mobile medical unit provides pregnancy testing, ultrasounds and STI testing, and treatment. It parks in Port Arthur, Silsbee, Orange, and Crystal Beach, Texas. The company has been operating for 27 years and also has a brick-and-mortar clinic building in Beaumont, Texas. They are planning to open another clinic building in Port Arthur.

“We saw the need to reach out to the community for those who can’t get here,” said Jeanette Harvey, Executive Director of Hope Clinic.

The mobile medical unit was created because while patients in Beaumont could use public transportation to access the clinic building, patients in surrounding rural areas had trouble getting to it. Harvey and her team conducted research by visiting a handful of other small towns in the area with their smaller mobile medical unit at the time to gauge community need and location convenience, and narrow it down.

Out of the four current parking locations, Crystal Beach is by far the most isolated. It’s located on the Bolivar Peninsula, a majority vacation town with a population of 2,769. The landscape is dominated by beach houses and RV parks, with a number of businesses including restaurants, bait shops, liquor stores, and real estate offices.

But as of 2025, there are no permanent medical facilities located on the Bolivar Peninsula.

Although the neighboring towns of Anahuac and Winnie each have a hospital, the nearest Level 1 Trauma Center is the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston – a ferry boat ride away.

Harvey said they received requests from the community to provide services in Bolivar. The clinic was awarded a grant from the Moody Foundation to fund their transportation, ninety minutes one way, to the peninsula.

“And our first few appointments, we saw how great the need was,” Harvey said. “We may not see the volume that we see in the other locations, but the need is great.”

Hope Women’s Resource Clinic’s website states that they “do not perform or refer for abortions,” however.

“We’ve always been a pro-life organization, and we are there to provide medical services as well as material resources and educational resources once the baby is born,” Harvey said, noting that they provide post-abortive care for patients who’ve made that choice.

Harvey acknowledged that the overturning of Roe v. Wade may have changed the situation for other people and organizations, but said it hasn’t changed the way her clinic provides services. The 2022 Supreme Court decision also didn’t change much for Southeast Texas as a whole, as the region had already been lacking abortion clinics for several years prior.

According to an article by the Beaumont Enterprise, the only abortion clinic in Beaumont at the time – and the last of its kind east of Houston – closed its doors in 2014.

UTMB is a public hospital that receives federal research funding and where low-income patients can receive affordable care. People living in rural areas with gaps in healthcare often depend on UTMB’s Galveston location. Jerome Yaklic, MD, said UTMB provides smaller clinics in rural areas, but some of those patients still have to travel for care.

“Most of those women that are seen in those clinics, if they need a more advanced service, higher level of care, or inpatient care, will have to travel to Galveston,” said Dr. Yaklic, who is the chair of UTMB’s OBGYN department.

The state of Texas provides Medicaid coverage to low-income pregnant women. Last year, they expanded that coverage to last 12 months postpartum.

Texas Hospital Association’s (THA) website states, “About 15% of Texas’ population is rural, including 586,000 rural Texans without health insurance.” THA also states that approximately 40% of rural hospitals in Texas offer labor and delivery services, and cites a 2022 report showing that over a quarter of the state’s rural hospitals were at risk of closing.

Harvey says many of their patients are uninsured or underinsured, and they strive to fill in the gaps of pregnancy Medicaid coverage. For example, Dr. Yaklic said, patients must provide proof of pregnancy in order to qualify. The proof of pregnancy would be a form that is filled out and provided by a clinic or a physician’s office.

By providing free pregnancy testing and ultrasounds, helping the patients enroll in pregnancy Medicaid, and referring them to local doctors, Hope Clinic gets them an earlier start on their prenatal care.

“What we’re finding with most of the healthcare for women and their babies is that the sooner they get in prenatal care, the better,” Harvey says.

The Trump administration has proposed Medicaid cuts, which has healthcare experts worried. A fact sheet by the American Hospital Association states that “47% of rural births in the U.S. are covered by Medicaid.”

If the federal government goes through with those cuts, Harvey said, the primary impact would be loss of coverage for their patients. Her clinic would still be able to provide their services, but the need for them would be greater, meaning larger gaps to fill. They already have a vision of expanding their services to include full prenatal care, which would become more urgent in the event of cuts.

“If they were to cut Medicaid to pregnant women, then that would be a very real need that we’d have to fill,” Harvey said.

The mobile medical unit’s schedule and more information can be found at their website https://www.hope-clinic.com/mobile-medical-unit.

Emma Brocato is a freelance journalist based in Galveston, Texas. Her reporting covers topics such as natural resources and healthcare disparities in rural areas.

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[1] Url: https://dailyyonder.com/mobile-medical-units-help-deliver-womens-healthcare-in-rural-southeast-texas/2025/07/14/

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