Hospital provides free lab work to 1,099 individuals

Note: This article originally appeared in the Elko Daily Free Press.

Elko - Nearly 750 people had blood drawn for free health screenings by dozens of health care professionals at the community Health and Fitness Fair on Saturday, March 22.

The annual Health and Fitness Fair, produced by Global One Media, brought together lab techs and phlebotomists from Northeastern Nevada Regional Hospital along with over three dozen providers and related businesses all in the name of community health.

“We really bring the hospital here,” said Steve Burrows, the hospital’s spokesman. “We have a lot of our phlebotomists from the hospital, as well as some of our nurses.”

He said after the fair the hospital “provided lab work free of charge to 748 people today.”

“This is compared to 673 people at the 2024 Health and Fitness Fair,” Burrows said. “So, we had 75 more people come through the line today than last year. It’s wonderful to see folks participating in these screenings and getting serious about their health. That’s what NNRH’s mission of making communities healthier is all about.”

He said as the event began Saturday morning hospital leaders were hoping to top last year’s count of patients who had their blood drawn. That goal was generally achieved. “We’re hoping to get maybe to 750 this year. That’s our goal, but the great thing is, it’s all free of charge.”

Several students in Great Basin College’s MAPE, or medical assistant, phlebotomy and EKG, program assisted hospital staff at the event, he said. They wore their purple scrubs and gained experience and credit for their work.

“We’ve got a great partnership with the Great Basin College,” Burrows said. “Their students are here working at the event, getting some clinical hours, which is great experience for them and really helps us out as well to get some more volunteers here.”

He said the point of the hospital’s participation is to help those living in the Elko area.

“It’s a great snapshot of their health because you get a comprehensive metabolic panel; you get a lipids panel, which is your cholesterol, your triglycerides; there’s a thyroid health screening; there’s actually a diabetes screening, and we’ll kind of tell you if you might be at risk of being diabetic, or for pre-diabetes,” Burrows said. “So, we really just encourage folks to come down to get it done.”

But if you couldn’t get to the convention center on Saturday, Burrows had a secret to share.

“Here’s kind of a secret. If you can’t make it to the health fair today, we’re actually going to keep the free lab work available at the hospital until April 5th,” he said. “If you come up to the hospital, we’ll work you into the workflow there at the lab. There’s no appointment necessary and just come right to the lab desk and say you’re there for the health fair draw and they’ll get you taken care of. And that’s good for two weeks, up until Saturday, April 5th.”

In addition to the hospital several health care providers and those in related fields also were set up at the convention center on Saturday. Among them were the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute, Dialysis Center Inc., the Skin Cancer Dermatology Institute, Focus Eye Care, Independence Drug and dozens of others.

Update: An additional 351 people came to the hospital and received the free screenings after the Health and Fitness Fair. This brought the grand total to 1,099 community member who received lab work free of charge.