Public health experts say place has played an outsize role in determining who contracted...
Long before the coronavirus pandemic, people on the South Side have been sicker and have had poorer health outcomes.
Ramirez, an expert on health disparities, said the scientific literature suggests there is a “dose-response” relationship between social risk factors and health.Crisis before COVID A look at social determinants of health in two census tracts shows the role they’ve played during COVID-19. Obesity is a strong risk factor for severe infection and death from COVID-19. Excess body fat can lead to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and hypertension. Metro Health has identified those three conditions as the most prevalent comorbidities among patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in Bexar County.
Initially, she didn’t want to talk about it publicly out of respect for her family members. Weeks later, Mayor Ron Nirenberg asked her to reconsider. In all, COVID-19 took three members of her church family from Divine Providence Catholic Church on Old Pearsall Road, not far from her district’s office and where she grew up in Indian Creek.
Martha Castilla visits her client Andrea Osorio in San Antonio. Castilla is a “promotora de salud” – a type of community health worker who works to provide resources in underserved, Spanish-speaking communities. Oscar Sanchez and Andrea Osorio share a laugh as they prepare dinner for their family. Oscar is a construction worker, and Andrea is a housekeeper; neither has health insurance. They seek medical care only when absolutely necessary for fear of revealing their immigration status.
This felt like a win, Rocha Garcia said. But it didn’t take long for residents from across the city and beyond to jam the phone lines in search of a shot. In parts of Rocha Garcia’s district, Spanish is the primary language spoken in as many as 72 percent of households and at least 81 percent identify as Latino, according to census data.
She then asked the city to distribute door hangers with information about the pandemic. “I was told no. And so I asked for robo-calls, and I was told no.” A bilingual door hanger included a “translation error” on the Spanish side that incorrectly said undocumented people were ineligible for vaccination.That misstep couldn’t have affected a more vulnerable population, said Martha Castilla, a “promotora de salud” — or community health worker in Spanish. She makes home visits in Spanish-speaking communities for the South Texas Area Health Education Center.
Osorio, 47, from Mexico, doesn’t qualify for CareLink, a financial assistance program offered by the county hospital. And she doesn’t want to risk applying for Medicaid for her children because of the risk of a federal crackdown on undocumented applicants.Andrea Osorio recounts her experiences as a survivor of domestic abuse and emigrating from Mexico to give her children a better life.
Census Bureau data shows that people who live on the South and West sides of the city are far more likely to work as maids, cashiers, cooks, janitors, home health aides, retail salespeople and restaurant servers — public-facing jobs with a higher risk of exposure to the coronavirus. Osorio paid out of pocket to be seen at a clinic on Southwest Military Drive that markets itself to Hispanic consumers. She checked in every two days to make sure her oxygen levels were satisfactory so she didn’t have to go to the hospital.
Morrow, an associate professor at UT Health San Antonio, and his team have now worked through four major surges in hospitalizations. They were often the ones holding the hands of patients as they died from the virus. Most were Hispanic., among cases in which race and ethnicity data were available, Latinos accounted for 70 percent of the county’s COVID-19 cases and 67 percent of deaths.Dr.
Dr. Ray Altamirano displays paintings he created on the walls of Casa Salud Family Medicine Clinic, which he founded on the Southwest Side, where he was raised. The clinic allows patients to pay a flat $100 fee for each visit regardless of insurance status. Meanwhile, Altamirano sells his art to help patients who can’t afford medical care. Many patients, he said, would otherwise “fall through the cracks” and have exhausted other local financial aid programs.
A patient with diabetes survived COVID but no longer responds to medication to lower blood sugar. The patient now depends on insulin to survive.