Reading Glasses and Surgical Steel: What Two Southern California Clinics Asked For + What We Delivered

Last month, MedCycle Network’s CEO Eric Talbert and COO Ernesto Olivares traveled to Southern California for two important deliveries as next steps in what is a growing expanded presence for MedCycle Network. What they found were two extraordinary organizations quietly doing heroic work, day after day, for their patients and communities.

First Stop: Lestonnac Free Clinic, Orange County

Lestonnac Free Clinic has been providing free healthcare to low-income and uninsured residents of Southern California since 1979. With a mission to provide free health care services to low-income and uninsured residents in Southern California through the support of generous volunteers and donors, Lestonnac offers comprehensive medical, dental, and vision care using a whole person approach. 

Last year, they did something that had never been done before in the United States. The first free surgical center in the U.S. opened at Lestonnac Free Clinic, where the clinic will be able to perform more than 60 surgeries per month. From hernia repairs and cataract surgeries to colonoscopies that have already detected early-stage cancers. All at zero cost to the patient. 

For a clinic performing that level of surgical care for uninsured patients, the equipment they use matters enormously. MedCycle Network's delivery to Lestonnac included several pieces of requested stainless steel surgical equipment, that was carefully matched to the clinic's specific needs and delivered directly to their team (photo above). Earlier this year, MedCycle Network donated a suction pump to their surgical center, a vital piece of biomedical equipment. To read more about this delivery, click here.

Eric and Ernesto were welcomed by Executive Director Steve Peters and Operations Manager Cindy Chacon, who gave them a full tour of the facility, including the remarkable Lestonnac Surgery Center. Needs lists and wish lists were collected, and the conversation made one thing clear: this is a partnership built to grow.

“Receiving surgical equipment through MedCycle Network directly supports our ability to provide the highest standard of care to our patients. For a clinic committed to making world-class surgery available to those without health insurance, our volunteer surgeons depend on having the right tools.” — Steve Peters, Executive Director, Lestonnac Free Clinic

Second Stop: Venice Family Clinic, Los Angeles

From Orange County, Eric and Ernesto headed to Los Angeles for a delivery to Venice Family Clinic, one of Southern California's most respected community health centers. 

Venice Family Clinic is a leader in providing comprehensive, high-quality primary health care to people in need, now serving 45,000 patients across 21 (soon to be 22) locations in Venice, Santa Monica, Mar Vista, Inglewood, Culver City, Redondo Beach, Carson, Gardena,, Torrence and Hawthorne. Plus four mobile clinics and an expansive street health program.

Their Street Medicine Program began in 2007 as an extension of Venice Family Clinic's homeless health care services, which date back to 1985. The program has since expanded from a single field-based team to 25 teams with 16 healthcare clinicians, serving more than 970 unique patients last year throughout LA County’s Westside, Inglewood and the South Bay.

These patients are the people who cannot come to a clinic. So Venice Family Clinic goes to them, on foot or by van, carrying everything a patient might need in a backpack or a mobile unit with dedicated professionals.

For this delivery, as a follow-up to our prior delivery, MedCycle Network brought something made by hand. The same week as the delivery, MedCycle Network volunteers assembled personal hygiene kits with soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and other personal care items, specifically for Venice Family Clinic's mobile street medicine team. These kits were built with intention by volunteers who understood exactly where they were going, who they were for and the importance of human kindness.

Eric and Ernesto were joined by MedCycle Network board member PD Shrader, who is based in LA. They were welcomed by Jose Flores, Manager of Individual and Corporate Philanthropy, and Dr. Coley King, who leads Venice Family Clinic's homeless health care program (photo above). They toured the flagship clinic in Venice and the mobile unit, where they saw firsthand how every square inch of that van is put to work in service of patients to provide them with care

Building the Southern California Network

At both Lestonnac Free Clinic and Venice Family Clinic, Eric and Ernesto met with key staff members, toured the facilities, and actively listened to understand what each organization needs and wants. Needs lists and wish lists were collected at both locations, the foundation of MedCycle Network's demand-driven model, which ensures that what we deliver is what our partners actually want and need.

One item appeared on both wish lists, independently, without prompting: reading glasses.

For an uninsured patient at Lestonnac's surgery center or a person experiencing homelessness who meets Venice Family Clinic's street health team on a West LA sidewalk, a pair of reading glasses is the difference between reading a prescription label, following discharge instructions, or filling out the forms that connect them to services that will improve their lives.

MedCycle Network will fulfill that request with 100 reading glasses for each clinic. Because that is how our model is intentionally built, so surplus that already exists is matched to a need that is clearly stated, delivered to the people who need it most to strengthen the existing health ecosystem in our communities because healthcare is a human right. Our responsibility is to help increase access to high-quality healthcare through partnerships.

We are growing in Southern California, and look forward to sharing more stories about our amazing partners. 

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