If you think navigating your company?s HMO policy is a hurdle to good health care, imagine being a new citizen or an immigrant without coverage or with limited ability to understand a care agreement.
Catholic Charities? Hispanic Apostolate signed an agreement with St. Joseph Medical Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine and St. Agnes HealthCare on Tuesday to open a new Health Services Center for immigrants in Fells Point.
The center expands and formalizes mobile clinics and vaccination drives the Hispanic Apostolate has held for several years, apostolate Director Cynthia Fickes said.
“We?re looking at not only doubling the number of patients we treat but expanding the services,” she said. “We?re looking to enable them to have a full life, stay employed and continue to care for their families.”
The new Health Services Center is slated to open in early 2008 on the second floor of Catholic Charities? Hispanic Apostolate and will serve people with no insurance. It also provides English language training, interpretation and referrals to other social services.
St. Joseph Medical Center provided primary health care for adults twice a week at this location through its traveling St. Clare Medical Outreach coach for 10 years, treating about 2,000 people annually. The services will move off the coach and into the new center, where Johns Hopkins Medicine will provide pediatric care, and St. Agnes HealthCare will provide obstetrical and gynecological care, according to the agreement.
“Since our Hispanic Apostolate opened in 1963, we have welcomed immigrants and helped them to learn English and assisted them with a wide variety of needs,” Harold A. Smith, executive director of Catholic Charities, said in a statement. “This new center continues Catholic Charities? historic tradition of welcoming immigrants that began in the late 1700s.”
A 2005 survey by Rivera Qualitative Research and Language Services of Washington, D.C., cited lack of health insurance, funds to pay for treatment and medications, transportation, and inability to communicate as factors discouraging immigrant Hispanics from seeking health care.
“This is a community that doesn?t have access as we all do to appropriate health care,” Fickes said. “It can be very expensive sometimes. It can be very difficult to navigate through our systems.”
