Maine
Maine Mobile Health Program assists migrant farmers in Maine – The Bowdoin Orient
The Maine Cellular Well being Program (MMHP) is Maine’s solely farm employee well being group whose mission is to protect and enhance the well being of the state’s seasonal and year-round agriculture and aquaculture employees and their households. Group well being employees battle to navigate the nation’s complicated well being system amidst numerous cultural obstacles. A government-funded non-profit group, the MMHP fights to scale back well being disparities for farmworkers to make sure their well being.
Laura Ochoa, a present group well being employee, feels strongly about supporting migrant farmers in Maine.
“[If] you don’t care for these guys, you aren’t going to have your veggies. You’re not going to have your fruit [or] your seafood as a result of [they] work actually onerous to offer us these stunning tasty meals that we eat,” Ochoa mentioned.
Medical Director of the MMHP Demetri Blanos described the number of companies this system supplies.
“We’re engaged on colon most cancers screening and hypertension management, in addition to an entire host of issues: cervical most cancers screening, breast most cancers screening, diabetes management, bettering outcomes for heart problems, ldl cholesterol administration, childhood immunizations, despair screening and referral for care and diet and weight counseling,” Blanos mentioned.
The MMHP sends out “cellular well being unit” vans to varied farms state-wide the place farmers reside and work throughout harvest seasons.
Group well being employees, like Ochoa, present companies together with educating employees on area people organizations, registering sufferers, driving vans to the farms and connecting sufferers to different qualifying suppliers.
“We not solely do the referrals, however [also help] in the event that they want the interpretation and the transportation. I am going to their home. I [pick] them up. I stick with [them] your complete time for any companies, and I carry [them] again house,” Ochoa mentioned.
The group thrives on offering “culturally-appropriate” care to farmworkers—a lot of whom are undocumented immigrants from Latin America, Haiti and Jamaica—in makes an attempt to mitigate well being disparities because of obstacles like language inacessibility and citizenship standing. Many employers don’t provide these undocumented employees insurance coverage because of their authorized standing.
That is solely one of many many obstacles in accessing ample well being care companies, leaving migrant communities much more susceptible to poor well being outcomes, based on Laura Valencia-Orozco, the MMHP’s behavioral well being director.
“When you’re constantly touring, shifting from one place to a different, you’ll be able to’t get your self established as a affected person wherever,” Valencia-Orozco mentioned.
The duty of offering culturally-appropriate care could be difficult within the state of Maine, the second-whitest state within the nation. Nevertheless, cultural insiders like Ochoa, who herself is a Mexican migrant, and Valencia-Orozco, who’s a Mexican migrant and former Maine aquaculture employee, carry with them a background just like that of their sufferers. This shared background between affected person and supplier permits for an improves supply of care.
“I feel it helps rather a lot, as a result of we’re talking not solely the identical language, but in addition the identical tradition,” Ochoa mentioned. “I give them that belief. I deal with them with respect and with care…I’m Latina, [I] know the tradition, I do know the boundaries.”
Nevertheless, well being transcends the realm of scientific care. Valencia-Orozco notes that different tenets of well-being, akin to psychological well being, bodily security and household reproductive planning play a big position within the well-being of those employees.
In line with Ochoa, it takes a cultural insider to higher perceive how employees talk their signs. This ability has helped Valencia-Orozco in diagnosing psychological well being points, starting from PTSD to despair, in employees who might in any other case not have been capable of talk their considerations.
“We had a affected person not too long ago that has had numerous panic assaults,” Ochoa mentioned. “We principally talked [about] totally different respiration methods…After which slowly [she] began speaking about like, ‘oh, you understand, after I’m much less burdened…after I sit, after I’m relaxed, [I’m] not having these panic assaults.’ In order that allowed her to type of [make] that connection herself versus me. Speak about her stress, [about] inflicting the panic assaults.”
The MMHP plans to broaden its companies and is at the moment working in direction of growing interventions for points they’ve discovered to predominantly have an effect on ladies, akin to home violence and reproductive well being.