From FNS News: Health Care Across Borders - Delivering health care to Latino migrants in the United States....

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FYI....

October 11, 2010

Health/Immigration News

Health Care Across Borders

Delivering health care to Latino migrants in the United States was high on

the agenda of a meeting in Mexico last week that kicked off the start of

Binational Health Week. Held in the old colonial city of Guanajuato, the

gathering attracted government representatives, academicians and health

care professionals. On hand for the inaugural event, Mexican First Lady

Margarita Zavala told the audience that good health was a fundamental

right.

Mexican Health Secretary Angel Cordova Villalobos outlined different

cross-border initiatives underway, including a plan to provide some

emergency and primary care to 3,000 temporary agricultural workers in the

state of Washington. The pilot program seeks to cover the workers with

individual insurance plans costing $32 per month, Cordova said. Mexico's

top-ranking health official also gave details about the opening of health

information desks in dozens of Mexican consulates.

" The health desks are not medical offices, " Cordova said. " They are places

where universities, city governments, hospitals and non-governmental

organizations give information about the most common illnesses and health

promotion, and explain to people where they can get attention. "

As much as 45 percent of the Mexican population abroad, or nearly three

million persons, do not have access to health care, Cordova said.

By 2012, the Mexican government plans to open 10 or more new health desks

in the US (including Alaska) and Canada, he added.

In a presentation, a Ryder of the US-based National Center for

Farmworker Health said that the health insurance reform passed by the US

Congress will exclude 60 percent of Mexican immigrants. Ryder predicted

that health clinics will face increasing difficulties in providing basic

services, as well as in offering adequate dental services to a needy

population.

" We do preventive actions for children, but no possibility exists for

doing restorative work in adults, " Ryder said. " We only take out teeth. "

Complicating the overall picture, she added, was the fact that only two

percent of US medical school graduates elect to work in community health

centers and clinics.

According to Health Secretary Cordova, Mexican migrants in the US suffer

from a variety of illnesses in far higher percentages than their

counterparts back at home. For example, while 7 percent of Mexicans are

afflicted with diabetes, 14 percent of the Mexicans residing in the US

suffer from the disease. Similar or higher percentage differentials

between the two populations are documented for AIDS, mental illness and

drug addiction, he said.

Xochitl Castaneda, director of the University of California's Health

Initiative of the Americas program, said feelings of isolation and

exposure to a new environment with a junk food culture contribute to

health problems and substance abuse in the migrant population.

Occupational health hazards are another key problem disproportionately

impacting the US immigrant sector, Castaneda said. " Work-related

accidents are one of the biggest problems immigrants have, " she said,

" because (immigrants) do risky work nobody else wants to do and don't have

insurance coverage because employers do not offer it. "

Cautioning that binational health weeks like the one celebrated this year

are a " little bandage on a hemorrhage, " Castaneda contended that migrant

health needs should be resolved in a " structural manner. " While health

care is recognized as a human right in Mexico, it is not considered as

such in the United States, the migrant advocate lamented.

First initiated in 2001, Binational Health Week is dedicated to taking

health care information and services to communities across North America.

For 2010, events were planned in 40 US states and three Canadian

provinces. According to Mexico's Secretariat of Health, public outreach

was planned via schools, community centers, health fairs, consulates and

mobile units. This year's activities were organized around five issues,

including campaigns against substance abuse, gang involvement, diabetes,

obesity, and autism, among others.

Joining Mexico and the US, the nations of Canada, El Salvador, Honduras,

Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia sent representatives to the Guanajuato

kick-off. Reportedly, attendance at this year's meeting was far higher

than previous encounters.

Meanwhile, in a parallel initiative, the Zacatecas State Health Department

announced it will create a joint fund with UC-Berkeley to establish health

clinics in the Golden State where low-income migrants can get medical

attention.

As part of the agreement, UC-Berkeley will send staff to Zacatecas for

language and cultural instruction, while Zacatecas will send state

government health personnel to California for training. Zacatecas is one

of Mexico's prime migrant expelling states, with large numbers of people

from the central Mexican state currently residing in southern California,

Texas and Illinois.

Sources: El Sol de Zacatecas, October 8, 2010. Article by Pinedo. El

Sol De Mexico/Organización Editorial Mexicana. October 7, 2010. Article by

Doina . La Jornada, October 6, 2010. Article by Angeles Cruz

ez. El Universal, October 5, 2010. Article by Ruth .

Secretariat of Health (Mexico), October 4, 2010. Press release.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news

Center for Latin American and Border Studies

New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico

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