Comanche Nation Prescription Assistance Health Fair Focuses on Family

Comanche Nation Prescription Assistance held its Health Fair from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, March 13, at Watchetaker Hall.

Comanche Nation Medical Center Director Kevin Wahkinney said about 280 people participated in the event, and it felt great to have everyone there.

“We deal with our clients on a daily basis, and we're always encouraging them to get out into the community, to come out to whatever the tribe offers because it brings them all together, it brings us to them,” he said. “And today was a really good day. We got to sit back and socialize with them. We gave them a lot of literature, a lot of information, health-wise. And then we got to sit back and fellowship and eat, break bread with them with the breakfast and the lunch, and then give a lot of door prizes away, so they liked that.”

Various vendors and speakers participated in the event.

“The ones that we were taking the leads with was the prescription assistance, the diabetes and the optometry programs,” Wahkinney said. “But we had tons of programs within the tribe that came out and helped participate. We had nine guest speakers that came in from Memorial Hospital to the University of Oklahoma and then to, locally, our own programs.”

The fair was focused on the family nucleus.

“We talked about the, to begin with, the prevention and recovery aspect of it,” Wahkinney said. “You know, it's kind of, unfortunately, a dominant in native country where drugs and alcohol really affect the family. So, we had speakers, I believe we had four speakers from prevention and recovery. They came in, and they talked about what that pertained to. We had the director for the children's shelter come in and speak about the children and how they're affected from whatever lifestyle that they're coming from and where they ended up in the children's shelter, and how they have to help them. So, we kind of talked, and Dr. Ali came in and talked about a healthy heart. So, with all these aspects of the healthy lifestyle, diabetes came in and talked about nutrition and exercise. All of these play a part into a healthy individual. It's not just one item that makes you successful in life. It's all of these things and then putting them all together as a nucleus for an individual and a family. And that's, to me, that's what brings the family nucleus together.”

Wahkinney said the project was worked on before the beginning of the holidays.

“There's too many names to say, but we appreciate everybody's help along the way,” he said. “From them cleaning up with food and with everything that we do, we really appreciate everybody's help and everybody's hand that took part in it.”

The organization will be working the Bubble Run on Saturday, April 6, at Ft. Sill Indian School by providing refreshments.