SUV Gift Puts Nurse in the Pink
By Peter Bailey, The Miami Herald
Aug. 22–If her pink RV breaks down again, sidelined by faulty brakes and torn tires, Alma Knight will jump in her Chevy Suburban — the newest addition to her mobile healthcare fleet of two.
The gray-and-white SUV was just one of many donations given to the 51-year old traveling nurse by South Florida residents who read in Sunday’s Miami Herald about her healthcare delivery service. For the past 1 1/2 years, Knight has driven her RV — "Pinky the Health Mobile" she calls it — into South Florida’s poorest communities.
She parks along Miami’s MLK Boulevard, outside Liberty City churches and in a vacant Overtown lot where the children await "Ms. Pinky" every Monday. Recently, she added Fort Lauderdale and Pompano Beach to her territory.
Her company, Paramount Community Health Team Inc., provides free screenings for blood pressure, sugar, dental and vision along with preventive health advice and doctor referrals.
"I admire what she’s doing and I figured she could really use the vehicle," said Mark Radcliffe, 43, a contractor who donated the 1989 Suburban.
Other gifts include medical supplies and money from pastors, residents and other healthcare agencies. One local printing company plans to design a logo and flyers for the mobile clinic. A real estate consultant has offered a GPS tracking system.
As well as donating medical supplies, Miami-Dade College officials hope to send nursing student volunteers on ride-alongs with Knight.
"It’ll be great for our students to get first hand experience in helping patients," said Terrance Bolon, head of the college’s chapter of the National Student Nurses’ Association. On Tuesday, Knight’s cellphone was still abuzz with benefactors.
Said Knight: "It’s been overwhelming."
After 29 years of working as a registered nurse at various South Florida hospitals, Knight said she got tired of seeing poor and minority patients treated badly.
So she decided to take healthcare to the community, she said.
Since Sunday, the cold stares she usually garners on the highway have been replaced by cheers and applause, said Knight.
While her business is for profit, she said so far she hasn’t turned one. She’ll get a small stipend for examining people at a health fair.
But her husband, Gary, 49, works double shifts for the county’s solid waste department to give her a bi-weekly allowance of about $200, which helps pay for gas.
He also does all of the mechanical work.
A month ago the brakes blew out, and two weeks ago the battery died outside Edison Middle School. Just last week the tires shredded on the highway.
"I was seriously contemplating quitting," said Knight. " ‘The outpouring has renewed my faith in humanity."
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