Hispanics, uninsured crowd clinics

Salem site tries to maintain a staff that is bilingual

BY LARRY WHEELER
Gannett News Service

August 21, 2007

WASHINGTON -- A dramatic increase in Hispanic patients and those without health insurance has crowded waiting rooms at community health centers nationwide.

The number of Hispanic patients seeking care at health centers grew by 52 percent to 4.8 million between 2000 and 2005, outpacing patients in all other racial or ethnic groups, according to data from Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees the centers.

At Northwest Human Services in Salem, the increase has been proportional to the growth of the overall patient population. From 2000 to 2006, the number of total patients jumped from 8,000 to nearly 12,000. About a third of those patients were Hispanic.

Nationwide, many centers have responded to the increasing numbers by adding interpreters, mostly Spanish-speaking, to help doctors and patients communicate.

Locally, Northwest Human Services has worked to maintain a staff that includes bilingual individuals. Physicians and others speak languages including Spanish, Russian and Vietnamese.

"We try to make sure we have staff that are multicultural," said Jeri Weeks, Northwest Human Services clinic director.

Inevitably, some patients are in the country illegally. No one knows how many because community health centers must treat everyone, regardless of ability to pay or immigration status.

But many fiercely oppose using taxpayer dollars to cover routine health care for illegal immigrants.

"Taxpayers should not be required to pay for health care, other than emergency services, to people who are in this country illegally," said Ira Mehlman, national media director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an interest group that advocates tougher border security and limited legal immigration. "We're dealing with a finite resource. There are millions in this country who are underserved already, and you are draining resources away from them."

Elizabeth Duke, administrator for the Health Resources and Services Administration, says community health centers have not become the default health care network for illegal immigrants.

"We have many established communities where you've got folks who are settled," Duke said. "They have roots. They have (green) cards."

Community health centers also are coping with an increase in patients who lack health insurance. The number of uninsured people seeking care at health centers grew 46 percent to 5.6 million patients between 2000 and 2005, according to federal data.

All community health centers charge patients on a sliding scale based on ability to pay. But many patients can't pay at all.

"Community health centers are a critical part of the solution (to a growing uninsured population), but we're not the answer by ourselves," said Virgilio Licona, a physician in Fort Lupton, Colo.

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