SANTA ROSA (California) PRESS-DEMOCRAT

September 13, 2008

Mobile care for migrants

St. Joseph’s medical clinic goes where the need is greatest

By TRACIE MORALES
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

California’s migrant workers follow a seasonal path starting in the Central Valley where they pick vegetables, then enter Sonoma’s Wine Country and finish the season picking apples in Washington.

The work is grueling, and if a worker is sick or injured, medical help is hard to find.

In Sonoma County, some workers can count on medical and dental care provided by St. Joseph Health System, which operates Memorial Hospital in Santa Rosa.

At a migrant housing site in Sonoma, a male migrant worker exited the mobile health clinic that visits the camp twice a week from late August to late October.

A female nurse practitioner bid him farewell.

“¡Hasta luego, señor!” she said.

The mobile clinic comes to schools and low-income neighborhoods to treat some of the neediest groups in Sonoma County: the elderly, the uninsured, and low-income parents and their kids.

The goal is simple.

“We are here to take care of people, and we provide that care,” said Esa Phongsa-Chu, a family nurse practitioner with the mobile health clinic. “We don’t turn anyone away.”

In the past three years, the clinic started to issue medical records that were accessible through a personal ID card.

For migrant workers, some of whom might suffer from diabetes or other illnesses, keeping track of their medical history and medication requirements is no easy task.

Now clinic workers can get the information they need about their patients’ health over the Internet.

The medical and dental staff also provide cultural and bilingual services.

At the migrant sites, the clinic will see from seven to 17 patients a day.

“They’re friendly to everyone, even if you don’t have a lot of money,” Yolanda Velazco said in Spanish. “They provide affordable medicine and health screenings.”

Velazco, a house cleaner from Petaluma, said she started feeling pains in her abdomen six months ago whenever she used cleaning products with strong fumes. At the clinic, she was diagnosed and is getting treatment.

Medical assistant Jillian Pinochi said it is common for many of the migrant workers to seek help for ailments that originate in the field or are related to a transient lifestyle and unhygienic, crowded living conditions.

“It’s hard on their bodies to be working and bending all day,” she said.

The most common ailments among migrant workers include asthma, depression, diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic backaches and foot problems.

Kathy Ficco, executive director of the Community Health Clinics and Programs, said the centerpiece for the community outreach done at the migrant camps and neighborhoods, schools and other locations is the family feeling inside the small mobile clinic.

“It’s very important to relate to the people we serve,” she said. “I think one of the reasons people enjoy coming to the clinic is because of the relationships.”