Centre Volunteers in Medicine is teaming up with Mount Nittany Health to help save lives and spread Diabetes awareness. 

“If we can prevent one person from having to be on dialysis, one person from going blind, it’s phenomenal.  We do have the tools here and we can offer them to our patients to help treat them,” said Denise Kreckel, a Clinical Pharmacist at CVIM.

They’re hosting a free health screening.  In years past, the event was solely focused on diabetes prevention.  This year they’ve expanded it to include vision screenings, dental  screenings, blood pressure tests, lung cancer screenings and more.  Kreckel says she wants people to know that help is always there.

“We have an amazing amount of resources available.  People probably don’t realize that we have a dietitian, that we have a gynecologist, that we have a neurologist, that we have a nephrologist.  All those types of advance care practitioners that are available to us,” said Kreckel.

CVIM is the only free health care clinic in Centre County, and with the future of health care in America still unknown, their goal is to help as many people as possible.

“We know that there are over 12,000 individuals in Centre County alone who do not have health insurance even with the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act.  We know that no matter what changes are going to be made in Washington, there’s always going to be uninsured people, and we just want to be here to help those people,” said Sue Forster, the Development Coordinator for CVIM.

The event is Wednesday at CVIM in State College from 9 a.m. until noon, and it is open to the public.

“We’d like to take care of small problems, before they become big problems,” said Kreckel.