In 2023, the Oklahoma Health Department’s Mobile Wellness Unit provided health care services and referrals for 1,567 people. In 2024, that number had ballooned to 2,466 people. As 2025 rolls into the spring months, public health care workers with the Carter County Health Department are ready to keep helping southern Oklahoman’s stay healthy without a debilitating bill.

“They should never receive a bill for our services,” said Sofia Bruner, a registered nurse and coordinating nurse for the department’s mobile wellness unit.

Bruner started working for the health department in 2020 as the pandemic was turning communities upside-down around the world. Now she is leading a team of public health care workers to sites across the region to offer basic health services to families that may be difficult to find elsewhere. Some of those services include tests to give people the power of knowledge about their own health.

“So we’re able to do cholesterol, thyroid, hemoglobin A1C — that’s checking for diabetes — a complete metabolic panel, a CBC (complete blood count). If you’re old enough and you meet the criteria, we can do a prostate and blood (test),” Bruner said on Tuesday.

Carter County is one of nine counties served by the Oklahoma State Department of Health’s south-central District 8. The department’s Mobile Wellness Unit makes regular visits throughout the district and will make its next stop in Ardmore on Wednesday, March 12, at the Grace Center on 12th Avenue Northwest from 9 a.m. until noon.

The gooseneck trailer features a full clinic where clerical staff, nurses and a nurse practitioner offer a menagerie of basic health services at no charge. Staff can also offer WIC applications for families and new parents. While some more complex testing and imaging services cannot be provided, clients can be referred to other health care providers for follow-ups.

“We’re not able to do x-rays, sonograms, things like that,” Bruner said. “If we find something that may be concerning, we would refer them out.”

The Mobile Wellness Unit may already be familiar to some families. Bruner said that the unit also makes stops at area schools in the summer to provide sports physicals free-of-charge. Health care workers with the unit can also administer vaccinations required for students to enroll in public school.

While the mobile wellness unit has already been deployed to rural areas in Johnston County and Stephens this year, the stop at the Grace Center will be the first after cold weather caused the unit’s February stop in Ardmore to be cancelled. Bruner said that cold weather can be dangerous to staff and clients waiting for services.

The health department is also able to offer many of these health care services outside of the mobile unit. Bruner said that a community health worker at the Carter County Health Department office in Ardmore offers many health services, while another health worker visits the Grace Center twice each month to further connect area residents with the department’s services.

The Carter County Health Department also provides information and items related to nutrition, parenting, and sexual wellness.

“I think whenever people think ‘health department services,’ it’s Covid. We still do Covid testing, we still do the Covid vaccine,” Bruner said. “However, we’re able to offer so many other services. Lab work, we’re able to offer blood pressure checks, glucose checks, medication refills.”

This post was updated to clarify the roles of community health workers within the department