Improve Patient’s Quality of Life
“At a church outreach we had a dad who couldn’t see and he’s a part-time construction worker with two children and a wife. His wife kept telling him to check his blood sugar and he kept saying that he just needed glasses. When they checked his blood sugar it was over 500 and anything over 200 is really bad and he could’ve fallen into a coma,” explains Safaeinili. “We told him to go to the emergency room, but he didn’t want to go because he was worried about the cost. He didn’t go to the emergency room, but he did go to our clinic where he saw a doctor who gave him medication and he was able to control his sugar and even regain his vision.”
This is just one of many success stories. Just like this man, there are many others that have been helped with the services provided at this clinic–all at no cost to the patient. In addition to receiving medical care, preventative care, they also offer other services, such as healthy eating classes, Zumba classes, free medications, and even free produce from local farmers that donate fruits and vegetables to the clinic.
“We also work with the Latino markets in five cities to make sure they are offering low-sugar cereal, whole wheat tortillas, low-fat refried beans, skim milk, almond milk, and a variety of diabetic-friendly foods,” says Safaeinili. The students make it easy for patients to shop at these local markets. They visit the markets and put green dots on the foods that are healthy for diabetics and red dots on the foods that are heart healthy. “Patients that can’t read or might not remember what the doctor said or heard in class can just look for the dots and buy food that is good for them,” she explains.
The students are passionate about the work that they do there. “The teenagers build their confidence and develop healthcare skills and at the end of their internships they graduate from high school and graduate our program and 100% of them are going to college, that’s over 44 kids per year.” They’ve had students that have gone to college and are now working in the healthcare field because they know of the necessity that exists within the Latino community.
“You need to find people that really care and want to share that compassion with the community that is struggling the most in our country to survive and to make it,” says Safaeinili. They are creating a new set of advocates for the Latino community, something that is truly priceless. “We’ve been able to demonstrate the long-term changes and we attribute that to having a program that has a social and emotional support to help people.”
The Corazones Sanos program is free thanks to donations and support from the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation. This program is just one of many programs across the U.S that are supported through the Foundation’s Connections for Cardiovascular Health.
Check out this video to learn more about the “Lessons Learned” strategies from the AstraZeneca Healthcare Foundation:
