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| Working with the Latino Health Outreach Project Clinic near Lee Circle are Tulane physician Ravi Vadlamudi, medical director of the clinic, and Catherine Jones, the Tulane medical student who organized the program. |
Six volunteers in scrub tops hover around an old station wagon, its tailgate open, in the parking lot of a gas station at Lee Circle in downtown New Orleans. Speaking Spanish, they minister to dozens of men and one woman, all but one from Hispanic backgrounds. Most are in their 20s, wearing jeans or workpants and T-shirts. The volunteers offer immunizations; hand out respirators and show the workers how to affix them to their faces; examine sore knees, shoulders and elbows; and offer cough drops. It is early morning, and the Latino Health Outreach Project Clinic is quietly buzzing with activity.
The clinic is a project of the Common Ground Health Clinic, a grassroots effort that sprung from necessity following Hurricane Katrina. The main clinic provides free health care for up to 50 New Orleanians each day in an abandoned storefront in Algiers on the Westbank of the Mississippi River. Its medical director is Ravi Vadlamudi, a family practitioner at Tulane University.
"I believe everyone needs heath care, and health care is a human right," Vadlamudi says. "I'm an activist."
The Common Ground Clinic was founded by like-minded volunteers--physicians, nurses, an herbalist and folks with less medical training who just want to help--many of whom came from the West Coast after hearing of the misery and desperation of New Orleans residents.
The Latino Health Outreach Project is the brainchild of Catherine Jones, a third-year student in Tulane's combined medical degree and master of public health degree program. A native of New Orleans who grew up speaking "Spanglish" at home, Jones had evacuated to Texas with her family. Hearing the distressing news out of her hometown, Jones came back to Louisiana after about eight days to help out. Jones has 40 or 50 extended family members in the New Orleans area, so she says it felt good to be back home.
"There was a need that existed and it wasn't being met," says Jones, who aims for a career in community health in New Orleans once she earns her medical degree. "I speak Spanish and when I lived in the Bay Area I did immigrant-rights work."
Jones and Jennifer Whitney, a certified wilderness first-responder who had been living in Seattle and Portland, saw the needs of the large number of Spanish-speaking workers drawn to construction work in New Orleans and decided to make a difference. The two young women serve as volunteer coordinators of the Latino clinic.
"One of my first thoughts was these people are doing dangerous work to help rebuild New Orleans," Whitney says. "What are they doing when they get hurt?"
The volunteers counsel the workers on a variety of health complaints, seeing a large number of repetitive use injuries. They teach wound care and how to prevent infection. During flu season, they provided free flu shots in addition to tetanus, hepatitis A and hepatitis B immunizations. They encourage the day laborers to seek primary health care at the Algiers clinic and refer emergencies to the Spirit of Charity, a sort of MASH unit set up in the former Lord & Taylor store in New Orleans Centre since Charity Hospital has been closed.
Jones has a month off from her studies in June, but she'll spend much of her time continuing to organize the Latino Health Outreach Project, ensuring staffing for the clinic. She would like to begin lining up volunteers who speak fluent Spanish who can serve as patient advocates for individuals referred to the Spirit of Charity for care.
"In the midst of tragedy, you do what grounds you. For me, that's being here and helping the community."
For more information about the Latino Health Outreach Project, e-mail lhopnola@gmail.com.
