Haight Ashbury Free Clinics

The Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, Inc. is a free health care service provider serving more than 34,000 people in Northern California.

Haight Ashbury Free Clinics
Industryrehabilitation
FoundedJuly 7, 1967 (1967-07-07)
FounderWillard Harris
Headquarters
United States of America 
Number of locations
Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California
Area served
Northern California
WebsiteHaight Ashbury Free Clinics website

Overview

The organization was founded by Dr. David E. Smith in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California on June 7, 1967, during the counterculture of the 1960s. As thousands of youth arrived in the city, many were in need of substance abuse treatment, mental health service, and medical attention. The clinic became the model for the modern form of the free clinic. The Clinics are currently composed of four core programs:[1]

  • Medical clinics
  • Substance abuse treatment services
  • Jail psychiatric services
  • Rock medicine: on-site medical services for public events and concerts
  • Treasure Island Job Corp Wellness Center

The clinics merged in 2011 with Walden House an addiction treatment organization; in 2012 they adopted a new name: HealthRIGHT 360.[2]

Rock Medicine

Through the benefit concerts organized with Bill Graham in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dr. Inaba and Dr. George "Skip" Gay created Rock Medicine with the support of Dr. Dave. In the spring of 1973, Bill Graham staged two consecutive Saturday concerts at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco, CA featuring The Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin. Bill Graham asked the Clinic to staff a "medical emergency care tent" during both concerts. These small stadium concerts, about 18,000 at the Dead and 25,000 at Led Zeppelin, evolved into Bill Graham's Days on the Green concert series. The "medical emergency care tent" became Rock Medicine, which is a branch of the Clinic that still exists today and provides medical care at hundreds of Northern California music concerts and events each year.

See also

References
  1. "Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, Inc". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-09-30.
  2. "Our Mission: History". HealthRIGHT360. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
  • Weiss, Gregory L. (2006). Grass Roots Medicine: The Story of America's Free Health Clinics. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-4070-7.

Further reading
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