More Hispanics using health centers

Hispanic patients outpaced all other ethnic groups seeking treatment at community health centers between 2000 and 2005. Nationwide, their numbers grew by 52 percent to 4.8 million.

In Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, some centers have added Spanish-speaking interpreters. The HealthCare Connection Inc. clinic in Lincoln Heights is one of those; Hispanic patients there jumped in one year from less than 14 percent of all patients in 2005 to 17 percent last year.

No one knows how many patients might be illegal immigrants, because clinics must treat all comers, regardless of ability to pay or legal status. But some members of Congress and immigration reformers object that illegal immigrants are draining scarce resources away from legal residents.

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

She prefers to talk about those who are in the country legally.

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

Clinics locally have had to be inventive in stitching together a "safety net" for hard-to-reach populations. Immigration raids, for example, might have made some people afraid to seek public treatment.

Clinics are trying new things: Cincinnati Health Network uses a mobile medical van to treat street people.

One physician, Dr. Joe Keisler, treats people some days out of a trailer near River Downs.

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