Keys AHEC helps a lot of people

Michelle Nevel, Development Director with Keys AHEC Health Centers, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about AHEC’s services.

AHEC had almost 6,000 medical patient visits during the 2023-24 school year and 47,904 medical services made available to our students, dental patient visits were 3,431 last year and 18,655 dental services provided.

Nevel said, “All of our services are for the children of our community, with 10 school based medical clinics right in the Monroe County Schools for the children to have access. We also have our mobile dental unit that travels to those same 10 schools for the children and along with a brick and mortar dental children’s dental clinic here in Marathon too. So with seeing 10,000 patients over the past year and that the need is still growing, it’s amazing that we are able to be able to give these services to the local children, and we can’t do it without our local community support.”

The inaugural Upper Keys Friends of AHEC member mixer coming up on Thursday, January 30.

Nevel said, “In support of our clinics, we’re going to have a fun event. It’s going to be held at the Zane Grey Lounge in Islamorada on Thursday January 30, from 5:30pm to 7:30pm and it’s going to be a great event, some nice food and drink and also live music and all of the proceeds from this event are going directly to support our Children’s Medical and Dental Clinics. It’s a beautiful, beautiful lounge that sits right above the Bass Pro Shop and we can’t wait to see everyone there. Tickets are on sale now. They can either go to the links and everything or in our social media, on Facebook and Instagram, and also they can get them through our website as well. If anyone has any questions, they can give us a call here at the office, and we can direct them to get tickets as well.”

72% of the medical patients served by Keys AHEC are uninsured or on Medicaid.

Nevel said, “Many of the local residents just cannot afford good health care, and it’s even higher percentages for dental patients. For the children, many children in our community have never seen a dentist before they started having access to the Keys AHEC dental clinics. Can you imagine a child having to sit through their classes through the day with a toothache, because they just can’t afford to be able to see a dentist to take care of a dental issue? We cover 98% of our dental patients are either underinsured, uninsured or on Medicaid. So these are people that greatly need these services, and it helps the families out with their medical expenses and dental expenses, and plus, we want to make sure that all of our Keys kids have access to this health care. I just want to make sure that everyone out there knows what we do, and that these services are available to them. So anyone just please go to our website and see all the wonderful things that we do in our community, and please come out and support us on Thursday, January 30.”

For more information, click here:  https://keysahec.org/