TURNERS FALLS — To help improve health care equity and community trust, Baystate Health’s Wellness on Wheels, or WOW Bus, is making stops across western Massachusetts to provide free health screenings.

Thirteen people were offered free health screenings in Turners Falls on June 25, when they stopped by the air-conditioned bus on a hot afternoon outside Greenfield Savings Bank and The United Arc on Avenue A. There, staff provided various health screenings and information on accessing additional resources.

“The WOW Bus travels to communities and meets people where they live and gather,” Baystate Health’s Mobile Health Equity Program Manager Kelly Lamas wrote in an email.

Lamas, who oversees bus operations and does community partnerships and outreach, explained that the WOW Bus is a unique feature to Baystate Health’s medical resources, serving as its only mobile health clinic.

The Baystate Health website pinpoints communities in Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden counties that get visits from the mobile clinic. Staff on the bus can do free preventative screenings for diabetes and blood pressure, and give out free COVID-19 tests and blood pressure cuffs, Lamas said. This service is open to anyone, with or without health insurance.

Staff can also offer referrals to other care options that are not available on the bus. Additionally, the bus serves as a mobile health classroom for UMass Chan-Baystate’s Population-Based Urban and Rural Community Health track, along with nursing and health profession students.

“Community members who have accessed the WOW Bus are receptive to the screenings that we provide,” Lamas said of the community feedback. “We’ve been at some community partner sites for almost five years and they look forward to our monthly visit.”

To bring this resource to Turners Falls, Greenfield Savings Bank Assistant Vice President and Community Engagement Officer Linda Ackerman said she learned about the services the WOW Bus provides.

“It’s very unique in the fact that [the WOW Bus] comes up here,” she said. “It is a feather in the cap, I think, for the town of Montague.”

More than physical wellness

To further supplement the WOW Bus, a wellness fair was held inside Greenfield Savings Bank featuring representatives from LifePath, the Northwestern District Attorney’s Consumer Protection Unit and Valley Health Regional Collaborative, along with a COVID-19 vaccine clinic set up by Walgreens.

Outside of the WOW Bus providing wellness information and health resources, Ackerman said Greenfield Savings Bank hosting the mobile clinic meant that advisors with the bank could offer guests financial wellness tips.

Consumer Protection Unit Director Anita Wilson explained that her office sees the impact of financial scams on people mentally and emotionally, and their resources are one element of wellness for community members.

“When someone falls victim to a scam, obviously they’re going to be going through a range of emotions, and they may feel really guilty, or they may feel really down on themselves,” Wilson said. “I think it’s really important for people to be educated to know what signs to look out for, and also to share the information with friends, family, neighbors.”

Robin Neipp, a public health nurse with the Valley Health Regional Collaborative, was at the wellness fair representing both the collaborative and the advocacy group Grassroots for Gun Violence Prevention.

Neipp expressed how prevention of gun violence is both a community and personal safety measure linked to a person’s wellness.

“You want to provide a safe environment. You want to do everything you can to keep your community and your children safe. So I feel like that would certainly be part of wellness,” Neipp said.

This June visit wasn’t the only opportunity for local residents to visit the WOW Bus, Ackerman explained, as it returns on the fourth Wednesday of each month until October, excluding the month of September. The next visit will be on Wednesday, July 23, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Greenfield Savings Bank and The United Arc parking lot, located at 294 Avenue A in Turners Falls.

A full list of WOW Bus locations and dates outside of Turners Falls is available on the Baystate Health website at baystatehealth.org/about-us/community-programs/wow-bus.

Erin-Leigh Hoffman can be reached at ehoffman@recorder.com or 413-930-4231.