If you need medical assistance and don’t have health insurance, one local organization has a solution that won’t cost you one cent.

After helping tornado victims in northern Alabama for nearly one year get free medical care, The Doc in a Bus program is back in Selma to provide free screenings and tests to Dallas County residents today beginning at 9 a.m. at 1432 Broad St.

Started in 2008 by the UAB School of Medicine’s Selma Family Medicine Residency Program, the 33-foot RV all-electric trailer is outfitted with three exam stations and a lab with plenty of volunteers on hand.

“We have three physicians, two nurses, who work in the lab, and four or five nonmedical volunteers … they’re literally volunteering their time,” United Way of Selma-Dallas County executive director Jeff Cothran said. “It’s a doctor’s office on wheels.”

From pap smears to mammograms to urinalysis, blood and thyroid tests or information on proper diet and health, Cothran said the mobile program has been beneficial to the area.

“We’ve been able to get services to people without insurance as well as be ready for disasters,” Cothran said. “We’re very proud of it.”

The program, Cothran said, has helped Hackleburg, an area completely devastated by tornadoes in April 2011, for eight months until a regular physician could step in.

“On May 1, we delivered it (the bus) to Hackleburg,” Cothran said. “The doctor’s whole office was destroyed … 17 people were killed; it was a valuable resource for the community … they were so loving, so appreciative, so nice; we’re lucky here in Dallas County to have the volunteers that we have.”

The Doc in a Bus is by appointment only. Cothran said with more than 700 patients throughout the county, already 25 have been booked for Friday’s event.

“We’ve kept the Doc in a Bus program going,” Cothran said. “Everything we do is free of charge.”