First generation immigrants face many challenges and often they put their health at risk because they work long hours in order provide for their families. Many times they skip visiting the doctor, even when they feel sick because they worry about the high cost of healthcare. This puts them at risk for developing chronic diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes. The Westminster Free Clinic Corazones Sanos Para Mi Familia (Healthy Hearts For My Family) program goes the extra mile to make sure patients in Thousand Oaks, CA receive the medical care that they need, regardless of their immigration status. They provide them with free medical care, educational materials, and so much more with the help of many volunteers, many who are just teenagers.
“Everyone that works here understands the challenges because to be bilingual is not enough, you have to look for a team that really has a heart for the challenges that first-generation immigrants have,” says Lisa Safaeinili, Executive Director of the Westminster Free Clinic. The clinic serves predominantly Latino low-income uninsured working people that work multiple jobs and still aren’t able to afford health insurance. “Everything we do at the clinic is free of charge and that is intentional because we want to make sure that people don’t put off healthcare,” explains the director.
The clinic provides free medical care, mental health services, health advocacy, wellness services and much more. Everything they offer is in Spanish and it is culturally sensitive to the needs of the community. Ninety percent of the staff is comprised of volunteers and the best part is their teen healthcare internship.
Teen Internship
The Teen Healthcare Pathways Internship Program is a great program that mentors teens by teaching them basic medical skills training, leadership development, and even career counseling. Many of these students have working parents that can’t afford to pay for their children’s sports activities, which cost $1,000 per activity. “Our students don’t have the confidence or a lot of opportunities to become leaders and believe that they can’t take honors or advanced placement classes, or even go to college because their families tell them that they can’t afford it,” explains Safaeinili.
The students help with all aspects of the Corazones Sanos Program. They are given the opportunity to become leaders and to learn the basics of working at a health clinic. They take patient’s temperatures and even present their cases to the doctor and the medical team, but most importantly they do outreach within their own communities. “The students bring people from the community who are at risk for heart disease or diabetes and when the patients come to the clinic, they see the students, so they feel safe to come,” she says.
Many times immigrants are hesitant to visit the doctor because they feel they won’t be able to afford it or understand what the doctor is saying since they don’t speak English. These students speak their language and so does the health team at the clinic.
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:
