Tulsa clinic offers health care services at winter warming shelters

Local shelters remain full as Oklahoma endures below-freezing temperatures, but one local organization is sending workers to shelters to provide healthcare for those in need.

Morton Comprehensive Health says it sends a nurse and other health professionals to all warming shelters during inclement weather, to provide care when it would be otherwise impossible.

Morton Comprehensive Health registered nurse, Laurie Ellis, said she has the chance to see any homeless patient who signs up when they get to the shelter for afflictions such as a rash, a bite, sores, frostbite, coughs and more.

If a patient needs additional care, the workers can bring the patient to Morton's main clinic or another hospital.

Ellis says treating patients where they are is crucial to hopefully get them to come back for any future treatment they may need.

"Since last week we’ve had three or four patients that I’ve seen at the shelters come in here to the clinic, and actually be seen," Ellis said. "Usually if we see them one time, they do not come back, but it’s building these relationships that mean more than anything."

Anyone who stays at a warming station and wants to receive treatment will need to register and check in with the warming station when they get there to see a nurse or physician.

Morton Comprehensive Health says they operate off a grant to pay for the treatment and medicine.