Harmony Health Clinic seeks to understand and serve the health and wellness needs of the medically uninsured and underserved who live in Central Arkansas, by providing access to quality medical care at no cost to these patients in a private, community-based clinic, staffed by volunteer professionals and marked by a unique atmosphere of caring, compassion, respect, dignity, and diversity.

PRINCIPLES

It has been said that while philanthropy is commendable, it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary. While Central Arkansas Volunteers In Medicine Health Clinic, Inc., conducting operations under the name “Harmony Health Clinic,” is wholly focused upon its mission of providing medical services without regard to a patient’s inability to pay, it is and will remain distinctly aware of the reasons for its very existence.

Specifically, the Clinic’s founders are committed to advancing social justice through the provision of quality health care to those who are denied it by virtue of barriers such as socioeconomic status. We believe that universal access to decent health care is integral to the sanctity, development and enjoyment of life, and vital to an individual’s ability to fully realize one’s dignity and potential. Virtually every religious faith and major Christian denomination takes the position that access to decent health care is and should be recognized as a basic human right, and that the prevailing health care system in this country utterly fails to protect that right when it does not ensure adequate coverage for all Americans. Indeed, the United States of America stands virtually alone among all industrialized nations as the only country which does not provide health care coverage to all of its citizens.

A fundamental measure of a society is how it cares for and protects its poorest, least powerful, and most vulnerable members. It is therefore unjust and unacceptable that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, tens of millions of children and adults struggle daily to live, learn, and work without access to basic health care, especially when the primary distinction between those with access and those without is a mere ability to pay. We as a people are responsible for the society in which we reside, and have a moral obligation to work to remove social barriers which perpetuate inequities and inhibit the common good from being achieved. The current system of rationing a necessity so vitally important as decent health care, solely upon the basis of one’s socioeconomic status, fails to satisfy the most basic tenets of social justice.

With the foregoing in mind, and while mindful of St. Augustine’s view that “charity is no substitute for justice withheld,” the principal mission of the Harmony Health Clinic is not to pressure nor petition America’s political leaders for meaningful reform, such as some form of universal health care system which ensures comprehensive health care benefits for all Americans. Rather, the Clinic’s aim is to directly provide that access in the absence of such system, and until such day as that system is in place. Confident that such a day will inevitably come, and consistent with the belief that health care is a right of the masses rather than a luxury for the privileged few, in the interim we are fully and faithfully committed to freely providing quality health care on the basis of medical need rather than material wealth.

OVERVIEW

• Serving the community for 8 years
• Providing more than $300,000 annually in dental work at no cost to patients
• Is able to serve patients due to our generous volunteers, financial contributions, and corporate sponsors
• Provides basic medical care for uninsured people living in Central Arkansas