Around 4.4 percent of Americans fail to obtain medical care due to cost, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Even with an insurance, a simple doctor’s visit is very expensive for someone on college budget.

Luckily, the health fair last week organized by the nursing students provided free checkups for HIV, blood pressure, vision, hearing tests and blood sugar.

Junior computer information system major, Pujan Dahal attended the event along with his friends. Along with various other free checkups, Dahal sat down for a hearing test as well.

“One of the girls before us actually found out that she was partially deaf.  The people running the tests gave her some health advice and talked to her about other tests too, which I think was very helpful,” Dahal said.

Apart from providing free health checkups for students, the event also allowed different health sciences students to talk about their respective programs.

According to Sherilyn Wiggins, assistant professor at school of nursing, the health fair was “an inter-professional collaboration with other departments in the college of health and pharmaceutical science.”

Dental hygiene senior, Tabatha Pierce, worked the informational dental hygiene booth that her program had set up.

“We get to pass out fliers and let them know about our clinic because we need patients and that’s how we pass school, by getting patients in,” Pierce said.

Among the various booths was the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency(LOPA). According to Leah Lopez, a representative for LOPA, the health fair helped educate students about organ donations and its importance.

“A lot of college students feel their life is invincible and that they aren’t going to pass away,” Lopez said. “What they don’t realize though is that through death one donor can save up to nine lives.”

The health fair is organized by the semester 5 nursing class every semester. It serves as one of the requirements to graduate the registered nursing program at ULM.

Booths specified an array of health topics like skin cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder and HIV testing and prevention.

Attendees also qualified for free door prizes such as a Fitbit, mug, cup and shirts that were awarded every 15 minutes.