Aid groups aim to bring health care to migrants on way to US
By JULIE WATSON Associated Press
December 28, 2020 02:30 PM
Aurora Leticia Cruz has tried to keep up with her blood pressure medication since fleeing Guatemala more than a year ago, but the limbo she finds herself in — stuck in a sprawling camp at the Texas border after traversing Mexico — has made that hard.
When Cruz felt woozy on a recent day as her blood pressure skyrocketed, it could have ended in tragedy, leaving her 17-year-old granddaughter and two great-grandchildren under 3 alone in the camp in Matamoros. But instead, a nurse practitioner from Oregon and a Cuban doctor, who like Cruz is awaiting U.S. asylum proceedings, were able to pull up her medical record and prescribe the correct dosage.
The health care workers who helped Cruz are with Global Response Management, a nonprofit that is attempting to go beyond mere crisis response and build a system to make it easier to track the health of migrants along their journey from Central America to the U.S. border. Cruz's medical record was created in June by the group, which has been collecting patient information.
Read more here:
https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/health-and-medicine/article248125945.html#storylink=cpy
