Health program reaches out to Hispanics
LISA OSBURN
The Birmingham News
Mar 20, 2007
Hundreds of Hispanic children have walked into a Cahaba Valley Health Care's free dental screening and sat in a dentist's chair for the first time in their lives.
Some of their parents have done the same, said Edwina Taylor, the nonprofit's executive director.
Taylor started the community health program in 2000 as an attempt to reach a growing Hispanic population in Jefferson and Shelby counties. The first clinics offered vision screenings, and free dental care was added within a couple years after she saw a dire need among Hispanics, she said.
Cahaba Valley Health Care has served more than 2,500 patients, Taylor said.
"I'm not standing at the Rio Grande with a sign that says `come to Alabama for a good time and free health care,'" she said. Thousands of Hispanic migrant workers, mostly from Mexico, are already in Birmingham, she said, and the free screenings help keep them out of the emergency room.
The dental and vision programs depend on grants and donations, such as a recent $3,000 grant from the Alabama Civil Justice Foundation, to function. The dental program also has developed a dental care network with Birmingham Heath Care's dental clinic, the UAB School of Dentistry, Jefferson County Health Department, private dentists and through Dr. Mark Buckner's Smile of Grace mobile clinic.
Volunteer dentists and optometrists are the heart of the operation, which first screens patients and then schedules free or reduced-cost dental and vision care, Taylor said. Those screenings usually take place one Sunday a month at different churches in Jefferson and Shelby counties.
One of the goals of the program is to keep the patients out of emergency rooms. Another goal is to educate a community in which dental care is not always a priority, she said.
Instilling good habits:
Of the patients seen at screenings since the initiation of the program, 80 percent have required follow-up care. That is related to the fact that so many Latinos Hispanics attending the screenings have never received any form of routine dental care, she said
