Nurse Alma Knight gauges someone's blood pressure inside her mobile clinic. RICARDO LOPEZ/MIAMI HERALD STAFF Chapter 3 gallery

Alma Knight kept the needle fixed on 55 mph, her white clogs steady on the gas pedal as she thought about the often breakneck pace of healthcare for the poor.

"Unfair, disgraceful, ungodly," fumed Knight as truckers barreled down behind her pink RV. The 51-year-old registered nurse waved them by, seemingly oblivious to the honking of the horns.

"Doctors don't spend the same time with poor people as rich folks," she said. "It's a sad commentary, but it's the truth."

In the right lane heading east on Interstate 595, drawing cold stares from fellow drivers last week, Knight was doing her part to improve healthcare delivery. For the past year and a half, she has driven her RV -- "Pinky the Health Mobile," she calls it -- into South Florida's poorest communities. She parks along Miami's MLK Boulevard, outside Liberty City churches and in a vacant Overtown lot where the kids await "Ms. Pinky" every Monday. Recently, she added Ft. Lauderdale and Pompano Beach to her territory.

Her company, Paramount Community Health Team Inc., provides free screenings for blood pressure, sugar, dental and vision along with preventive health advice and doctor referrals. Formed in February 2006, Paramount has served about 500 clients. In March, the company won the Small Business of the Year award from the Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce.

"Alma is taking healthcare to the community," said Bill Diggs, head of the chamber. "That's an honorable service."

DISPARITY IN CARE

After 29 years of working as a nurse at various South Florida hospitals, Knight said, she got tired of seeing poor and minority patients treated poorly -- treatment she said resulted in many never returning to the hospital.

About 81 percent of whites are more likely to use a private doctor's office as a usual source of care compared with 66 percent of blacks and 59 percent of Hispanics, according to the Journal of the National Medical Association. Also, 14 percent of Hispanics and 13 percent of blacks were more likely to report they used hospital emergency rooms or had no usual source of care.

The lack of access to regular care has profound effects: Black cancer patients have about a 30 percent higher death rate than their white counterparts, according to the American Cancer Society.

"My people are dying needlessly," says Knight.

Services such as Knight's are often "life savers," said Misti Alders, area patient services representative with the Miami branch of the American Cancer Society. The mobile clinic was inspired by the success mobile units had providing services to storm victims in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Knight scouted some old school buses, then came upon the 1994 Majestic RV sitting in a Ft. Lauderdale car lot. With only 19,000 miles, the massive vehicle was on sale for $17,000. Knight cashed in her retirement of about $6,000; her husband, Gary -- her "anchor" -- provided the balance.

Inside, Knight placed two beds for emergency overnight transports. Her small nurse's station, a table draped with a flowery blue and beige cloth, faces the door. Sea shells adorn a clock overhead.

The tablecloth and clock reflect her roots in the Bahamas, where Knight says she learned to spend time with patients in the British healthcare system.

She wears no white coat, so patients won't get "white-coat hypertension" as they enter the RV, climbing the wooden steps Knight built.

OK . . . SO WHY PINK?

On her first trips to Overtown, people offered to sell their blood, mistaking the white RV for a bloodmobile. Then one man asked for a plate of hot wings -- and Knight decided to change colors.

Pink paint was the only color on sale.

At first, people were skeptical of Knight, who wears her hair in braids held by a head band matching her brightly colored shirts. But after witnessing several gun fights and police raids, Ms. Pinky never drove off -- only prayed.

"I think that's how I won their trust," says Knight. "God is my security." She calls her daily drives "God's work."

The American Heart Association pays for screenings at senior citizen centers and church health fairs, while the American Cancer Society provides the health brochures she hands out. Her business is for-profit, Knight says, but she admits that so far she hasn't turned one. Her husband, Gary, 49, works double shifts for the county's solid waste department to give her a biweekly allowance of about $200, which helps pay for gas. He also does all of the mechanical work. A month ago the brakes blew out, and last week the battery died outside Edison Middle School.

"I support what she does because I believe in her," said Gary. "Next thing I got to get her is a GPS."

Last week, after leaving her Miami Lakes home for Eagles Nest Elementary Charter School in Pompano Beach, Knight prayed for her tires to last until next week.

At the school, executive director Pauline Foster-Grant coaxed kids' parents and residents to get blood-pressure checks.

"We're a Title I school, and a lot of our parents don't have health insurance or the resources to see someone like Ms. Knight," she said.

One patient, Mercy Henry, 53, stared wide-eyed at her blood-pressure reading: 160/100.

"Sis, that's not good. You got to stay off the salt," said Knight, holding her hand.

"I know . . . I know. I do use a lot of salt," answered Henry.

Said Knight: "We have to learn to read labels, sis . . . because we're digging our own graves."

After several hours, Knight packed her brochures, Cheerios and oatmeal demonstration boxes and headed back down I-95 toward Miami, talking about the healthcare system.

But as she spoke, something below the RV boomed and then rattled.

A flat tire.

"That's why I drive at 55 mph," joked Knight.

She pulled over. The right rear tire was shredded and torn. Knight phoned Gary. A Road Ranger soon showed up but couldn't help.

In disbelief, Knight gazed at the ground then sighed. As vehicles whizzed past, an F-150 pickup pulled up and Gary hopped out.

"Oh, my knight in shining armor!" Knight said.

He pulled a jack from the RV, slid it under and had the tire changed in less than 20 minutes.

"Baby, I gotta get back to work so I can keep you on the road," Gary joked, hugging his wife.

Knight says she intends to keep going -- steadily, at 55 miles per hour.