Citizenship not required; Mexico a
co-sponsor
TUCSON (By Sheryl Kornman, Tucson Citizen )
December 4, 2007 — Everyone raises a hand when Carmen Ramirez asks — in Spanish
— the 50 or so lunch guests at a West Side neighborhood center if they know
someone with diabetes.
Ramirez is a health educator at the Arizona
Department of Health Services.
These Spanish speakers, moms with babies,
grandparents, too, are part of the target market in Tucson for Ventanilla de
Salud.
The binational “Window of Health” initiative is
co-sponsored by the Mexican government’s foreign ministry and, in Tucson, by El
Rio Community Health Center through its El Rio Foundation.
The program encourages the enrollment of
Hispanics, including undocumented immigrants, in sliding-fee health care services
offered at the nonprofit health center, 839 W. Congress St.
The goal of Ventanilla, according to the
Mexican government, is to improve the health of Hispanics of Mexican descent.
Ventanillas here and in other states offer
health education programs to combat diabetes, obesity and heart disease. They
also help Hispanics sign up for medical care.
In some cases, they help arrange medical care
south of the border.
El Rio,which agreed to sponsor the program with
the Mexican government here, provides health care to anyone, regardless of
citizenship status.
Clients pay fees to the nonprofit medical
facility based on their incomes for medical, dental, maternity and other
services.
Jill Rodriguez, El Rio’s development
coordinator, said improving the health of children and adults is an issue
“without borders.”
Ventanilla in Tucson is designed to help people
understand what is available on both sides of the border, she said.
“This is not about giving away medical care to
people,” she said. “It’s about understanding how medical care works and being
humane in how people access medical care.”
To those who object to providing health care to
people who are not legal residents of the United States, she says: “We have to
come together as a community. We’re not just a community health center on the
other side of the fence.
“I wish we had the staff so we could go door to
door and ask, ‘Do you have a doctor?’ “
The diabetes education lunch and “chat” last
month took place during National Diabetes Prevention Month.
The meal, at El Pueblo Neighborhood Center,
featured refried beans made without lard, a mixed green salad, fresh fruit and
carne asada cooked without added fat.
The food was donated by Food City, an Arizona
grocer that markets to Hispanics.
The Tucson-Mexico Ventanilla program got under
way quietly here on the West Side about 20 months ago.
Patti Woodcock, spokeswoman for the Pima County
Health Department, said county health officials were not aware of it until
recently and had no “official” comment on it, she said.
The county also provides some health-care
services to residents here regardless of citizenship status.
“Communicable disease doesn’t recognize
borders,” she said.
“We ask only for an address and provide public
health services to anyone, regardless of documentation,” she said.
Woodcock said county medical professionals
don’t ask questions about citizenship when they offer HIV/AIDS testing,
tuberculosis screening or vaccines for children and adults. Preventing the
spread of communicable diseases is the goal.
The Mexican Consulate in Tucson, with funds
provided by the Mexican government, pays $30,000 a year for Ventanilla de
Salud’s outreach efforts here. El Rio Foundation pays $30,000 a year to run the
Ventanilla program in Tucson.
Ventanilla reaches about 1,500 people a year in
health promotion programs around town, at El Rio’s eligibility offices and
through the Mexican Consulate, which refers people to Ventanilla.
Gifts from donors, including pharmaceutical
giant Pfizer, help El Rio expand the reach of Ventanilla’s preventive health
programs.
Ventanilla’s full-time health coordinator, Alma
Castel De Oro, works two days a week at the Mexican Consulate, 553 S. Stone
Ave., and three days a week at El Rio Health Center.
Castel De Oro, a former hospital eligibility
worker with more than 20 years of experience in health care in Tucson, helps
anyone who asks about access to health care and helps people find out which
programs they’re eligible for.
“To have access to health care, you don’t have
to have your legal status,” she said.
Castel De Rio said she tells people who are not
legal residents of Arizona they can can get health services at El Rio.
