Health Outreach Partner’s released its fourth annual needs assessment Breaking Down the Barriers: A National Needs Assessment of Health Outreach this past spring. HOP hosted three focus group discussions, with farmworker parents attending either one of two program conferences or a parent group meeting. A focus group guide was created and translated into Spanish. All discussions were recorded, transcribed, and translated. In total, 34 persons participated in the discussions. In this article, we respectfully share excerpts of the farmworker voices we heard. Commentary is not included but rather we simply allow their experiences and insights to speak for themselves.
For a copy of the complete needs assessment report, please visit our website: http://www.outreach-partners.org/docs/FAN%20Report%20Edn.4.pdf
Voices for Access to Health Care
Facilitator: “What are the needs of the farmworkers in the community?”
Participant: “Well, that they have access to medical attention.”
“Because of the economic situation . . . funds are being cut, a lot of help has closed down . . . very many for low income families. Now it is really difficult to find a program that can help them or a health center that can help them with something . . .”
“. . . if you could help us so the center opens early and closes late; this is a big need.”
“In Arizona . . . there is a strong anti-immigrant environment. There are many estate laws affecting immigrant families a lot, a lot. And one of those areas is exactly health; many families leave the state or stay there because they do not have where to go, and are not accepting health services . . . as a result, we are finding more children with health issues, or asthma that are not receiving treatment.”
“I come from the state of Washington, and over there it is very different. They provide us with health care when we are pregnant, but they stop it three months after giving birth.”
“I say that there have to be more clinics so we could use a closer clinic, because there are clinics for the migrants, but they are very far, and we work every day, and when we have a day off, it is to do other things around the house.”
“The main one [issue] is that there are not enough health clinics.”
“If there was a way you could help us to offset the cost even more also, right? [the cost] of health. . . If we get sick, we as parents . . . who is going to put the bread on the table for our children, right?”
Voices for Dental Health Services
” . . . going to the dentist is a luxury.”
“And if you are low income, you can’t have the luxury of going to the dentist.”
“The cost is very expensive. Very expensive. The first visit I think is $90.00, just for them to look at you. Those $90.00 only turn into about ten minutes there with the dentist and you are going to leave and they are going to tell you, ‘It will cost you . . .”
“A thousand dollars!”
“They could take some money from our checks, not that much, for us to have the right to access a dentist, as people born here have.”
“I do not have the privilege of a dental cleaning . . .”
“The truth is that dental services do not exist for farmworkers. There is nothing, even for pregnant women . . . There is nothing . . .”
“. . . dental hygiene is very important for the children when they are small. There is a dentist in town; we were referred to him but he said he is not taking new patients, because he is full. Then they sent us to another town, two or three hours away, to get dental services. She and I have to go to take [the children] and it is difficult.”
Voices for Social Services
“Child care is the most important thing.”
“I am going to Minnesota, the same than my wife. It is like she said, we go from here and we have to wait a month to get help. It may be [food] stamps, I mean to choose a resource, stamps or medical assistance, we have to get there and start working . . .”
“When we get to where we go, we cannot find housing, you have to get there early . . . we had to stay with my sister-in-law, or with family [members] . . . we are in their way, we need our home; housing is another problem.”
“. . . we went and checked the house; they told us that everything was okay with the house but during the following month, my son was getting sick very often and we took him to the hospital and we were told that there was mold in the house. We tore the wall up and everything inside was black.”
Voices for More Information
“. . . sometimes parents lack information, it does not get to where it should be.”
“I think more clinics are needed, and [we need to have] more information available in the place where they are.”
“Maybe give the information more to the farmworkers. Pesticide workshops. About how, when they get home, not to go in with dirty clothes. Or take into account that they have children. And children can get sick simply by touching them or smelling them. They get contaminated. That is, it would be very good to give farmworkers workshops about all this.”
“I mean more information . . . about hygiene, what we need to do when we come back from spraying the chemicals away, or all that we are in contact with.”
“. . . I have seen instances in which they talk about pesticides, that [pesticides] are something dangerous, that it is dangerous that you go work and then come back to hug your children . . . But there are people that have no information, that do not know what to do.”