Toyota Works to Provide Free COVID-19 Testing
Toyota has teamed up with Huntsville Hospital and Alabama A & M University to provide free COVID-19 testing to underserved communities in Madison County, where its Alabama manufacturing plant is located as well as its new joint facility with Mazda.
The three groups are collaborating to develop a mobile health clinic that can test up to 50 walk-in patients per day while deployed at neighborhood locations. The initiative is intended to launch later in the year and evolved from an existing partnership between Toyota and AAMU.
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The mobile clinic will be made up of two units working in collaboration with the City of Huntsville’s COVID-19 response plan, which aims to increase local testing options that don’t require doctor’s orders.
The clinic won’t go away when COVID-19 does, though. Toyota says it will eventually be able to provide health screening services and preventative care, while the Huntsville Hospital says the clinic’s services include statewide disaster relief and providing education for preventable and manageable diseases.
Since 2018, Toyota has been providing grant funding to support a student-led program intended to identify and solve community needs related to mobility, which has been an ongoing focus for the Japanese automaker. Toyota also provided students with Toyota Way training.
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When the need for COVID-19 testing rose, AAMU allocated $100,000 of that funding to the Huntsville Hospital Foundation, while the hospital offered clinical services and training for AAMU students in the field.
“Increased testing is vital to slowing the spread of the virus, but not everyone can access current testing sites,” said Dave Finch, president of Toyota Alabama.
“For Toyota, mobility is more than just moving people from point A to point B, it’s also about finding better ways to bring critical services to people. Bringing together the right partners to better serve the community is something we are continuously looking to do.”
Kurt Verlin was born in France and lives in the United States. Throughout his life he was always told French was the language of romance, but it was English he fell in love with. He likes cats, music, cars, 30 Rock, Formula 1, and pretending to be a race car driver in simulators; but most of all, he just likes to write about it all. See more articles by Kurt.