SEATTLE — A free clinic at Seattle Center this week will serve people who struggle to access health care in the Puget Sound region.
The Seattle/King County Clinic will be held Feb. 15-18 and offer dental, vision and medical care. All services are free and include things like teeth fillings, x-rays, eye exams and prescription glasses, physicals, mammograms, ultrasounds, immunizations, physical and occupational therapy and behavioral health.
Daily tickets are distributed beginning at 5:30 a.m. on a first-come, first-served basis at Fisher Pavilion. Clinic doors open at 6:30 a.m.
People can attend multiple days but they need to get a new ticket each day. Patients cannot get vision and dental care on the same day.
ID is not required, and interpreters are available.
While many services are offered, some are not available at the clinic, including complex dental extractions, biopsies, CT scans, casts and new prescriptions for behavioral health medications.
Patients should not show up if they are sick, and if they need immediate attention, the clinic provided a list of affordable resources.
Over 3,000 volunteers and 100 partners put on the event, which the clinic said was nationally unique.
Since 2014, the clinic has served 27,000 patients and provided more than $23 million in direct services.
The clinic aims to remove barriers for people who are not able to access or afford care. Last year, 52% of the people served at the clinic said they didn’t have health insurance, which nearly half of the participants said prevented them from seeking care, according to the clinic's 2023 report.
Nearly 45% of 2023 patients said they had been waiting at least seven months to get care for health conditions they were experiencing.