Chinatown medical outreach to expand on Oahu with new van

A team of health care professionals and volunteers that treats the medical needs of Chinatown’s homeless twice a week has now been augmented with a colorfully painted new Nissan van that will deploy next month to Oahu’s North Shore, Leeward Coast and Central Oahu to expand medical aid to even more of the island’s homeless and medically needy.

Nessa Vierra, 60, has received COVID-19 vaccinations, a cellphone, bandage kits and repeated offers of help from the walking Chinatown medical team led by Dr. Chistina M.B. Wang, medical director of the Hawai‘i Health &Harm Reduction Center.

Vierra called the center’s additional medical mobile outreach across Oahu “one of the greatest things to happen. That’s perfect.”

Vierra spends time in her regular spot at River and Pauahi streets, along with dozens of her friends who have been treated by Wang’s team over the years.

“I love you guys,” Vierra shouted to Wang and her team during their regular outreach Tuesday, which includes follow-up visits every Friday.

Tuesday represented the sixth time that the Hawai‘i Health &Harm Reduction Center parked its van in the city’s Aala Park, next to the skateboard park.

It represents an additional tool in the effort to treat homeless people, along with a mobile outreach team from the University of Hawaii, psychiatric help from the Institute for Human Services and the state’s first Joint Outreach Center, next to the Honolulu Police Department’s Chinatown substation.

Wang’s team can refer clients they meet on the streets of Chinatown to the van for even further treatment, including tobacco reduction products, rapid tests for various strains of hepatitis and tele-health connections to mental health and substance abuse experts at the organization’s clinic in the Gold Bond building in Kakaako.

In July the van is scheduled to expand medical outreach to homeless people around the Haleiwa and Waianae small boat harbors and to Central Oahu.

The van was purchased through a grant from the state Department of Health and is hard to miss.

It’s been painted in the Japanese Tokidoki anime style by Cullen Koshimizu, who coordinates the Hawai‘i Health &Harm Reduction Center’s disbursements of anti-HIV medications and counsels patients on harm and risk reduction efforts.

Koshimizu created caricatures of the center’s staff, including one of Wang sliding down a rainbow on the van’s passenger side.

The back of the van includes the phrase “Ka‘a Lawe Pono,” or “The car that delivers wellness,” along with the organization’s website, www.hhhrc.org.

One volunteer working with Wang is Sophia Collis, who grew up in Manoa, attended Mid-Pacific Institute and is now a first-year medical student at the University of California, San Francisco.

Collis estimated Tuesday that she’s volunteered for 100 or more shifts with Wang that have gotten her both hands-on, street-level wound care experience and a deeper understanding of the issues that face Chinatown’s homeless.

Collis has helped treat patients for opioid addiction and dealt with “lots of ongoing infections” that only get worse on the street.

She’s also seen clients heal once they get into permanent housing.

“It’s amazing how much people’s wounds improved when they’re housed,” Collis said.

Charles Young of Kaka­ako is an incoming sophomore at Grinnell College in Iowa, where he’s considering a career in health care. He joined Wang’s team during winter break and estimated that he’s volunteered for 20 or so shifts since, where he’s seen open wounds turned septic and infested with maggots.

“This is the most hands- on experience, and I really enjoy it,” Young said. “And it addresses a community need.”

The effort is reciprocated by the team’s regular patients.

Tim McNalli, 63, has lived in a tent off of Pali Highway for “too long” and called Wang’s team “really great. They’re real good people and they serve you really well.”

Charles Young, 63, receives regular treatment for lingering infections to both feet.

Since he moved into permanent housing at Chinatown’s Gateway Housing project, Young’s wounds have improved but still need regular cleaning and bandaging provided twice a week by the Hawai‘i Health &Harm Reduction Center’s medical street team.

Young said the medical professionals and volunteer students were delivered to him “on the wings of angels. … They’re fantastic.”