2023-11-02 20:49:40
CHICAGO — Using sidewalks as exam rooms and heavy red canvas bags as medical supply closets, volunteer doctors spend their Saturdays caring for the growing number of immigrants arriving in Chicago without a place to live.
Mostly student interns, they go to the police stations where immigrants are housed, prescribe antibiotics, distribute prenatal vitamins and evaluate serious health problems. These medical, nursing and physician assistant students are the front line of providing health care to asylum seekers in the nation’s third-largest city, filling a void in Chicago’s disorganized response.
“My team is a team that shouldn’t have to exist, but exists out of necessity,” says Sara Izquierdo, a medical student at the University of Illinois Chicago who helped found the group. “Because if we don’t do it, I’m not sure anyone will.”
More than 19,600 migrants have arrived in Chicago in the last year, since Texas Governor Greg Abbott began sending buses to so-called sanctuary cities. Migrants wait in police stations and airports, sometimes for months, until there is space in a longer-term shelter, such as park district buildings.
Once at the shelter, they can access a county clinic exclusively for immigrants. But the 3,300 people currently in limbo at police stations and airports must rely on a hodgepodge of volunteers and social service groups to provide them with food, clothing and medicine.
Izquierdo detected the lack of medical care months ago, consulted experienced doctors and designed a street medicine model adapted to the medical needs of immigrants. His group makes weekly visits to police stations, with a very small budget of $30,000, which is mainly spent on medication.
On a recent Saturday, he was among dozens of doctors at a South Side police station where immigrants sleep in the lobby, on the sidewalks and on an outdoor basketball court. The officers wouldn’t allow volunteers into the station, so when a patient asked for privacy, his doctor used his car.
Abrahan Balizario saw a doctor for the first time in five months.
The young man, 28 years old, had a headache, toothache and chest pain. He had just arrived from Peru, where he worked as a driver and in a laundry, but he might not survive. He was not used to the cool climate of Chicago and he believed that sleeping outdoors aggravated his symptoms.
“It’s very cold,” he said. “We almost froze.”
The volunteers booked him a dentist appointment and gave him a bus pass.
Many of the migrants landing in Chicago and other American cities come from Venezuela, where a social, political and economic crisis has plunged millions of people into poverty. More than 7 million have left, often risking a dangerous trek on foot to the US border.
Migrants’ health problems are often related to travel or living in overcrowded conditions. Back and leg injuries from walking are common. Infections spread easily. Hygiene is a problem. There are few indoor bathrooms and outdoor portable toilets lack sinks. Not many people keep their medical history.
Most also have traumas, whether from their homeland or from the journey itself.
“You can understand the language, but that doesn’t mean you understand the situation,” says Miriam Guzmán, one of the organizers and a fourth-year medical student at the UIC.
Doctors refer patients to organizations that help with mental health, but there are limitations. The fluid nature of the shelter system makes monitoring difficult; People are often moved without warning.
Chicago’s goal is to provide permanent homes, which might help alleviate health problems. But the city has had trouble managing the growing population, as buses and planes arrive at all hours every day. Mayor Brandon Johnson, who took office in May, calls it a legacy problem and has proposed winterized tents.
His administration has recognized the great dependence on volunteers.
“We were not prepared for this,” said Rey Wences Najera, first deputy for the rights of immigrants, migrants and refugees. “We are building this plane while we are flying it and the plane is on fire.”
Volunteer doctors are also limited in what they can do: In their suitcases they carry children’s medications, bandages and even earplugs because some immigrants wanted not to hear the sirens. But they can’t do x-rays or treat chronic problems.
“You’re not going to tell a person who’s been through this journey to quit smoking,” says Ruben Santos, a medical student at Rush University. “You change the way you try to connect with that person to make sure that you can help them with their most pressing needs without doing some of the traditional things that you would do in the office or at a large academic hospital.”
The volunteers explain to each patient that the service is free but that they are students. Experienced doctors, who are part of the effort, approve treatment plans and prescribe medications.
Getting people on those medications is another challenge. A visit to the station resulted in 15 recipes. Working on laptops on the floor, near dozens of sleeping families, doctors planned which doctors would pick up the medications the next day and how they would find the recipients.
Sometimes volunteers have to call for emergency help.
Moisés Hidalgo, 30, said he had trouble breathing. Doctors heard a worrying “crackling” sound, suspected pneumonia and called an ambulance.
Hidalgo, who arrived from Peru following leaving his native Venezuela more than a decade ago, once worked as a chef. He has been going around Chicago looking for work, but has been turned away without a work permit.
“I’ve been trying to find a job, at least so I can pay to sleep somewhere, because if this isn’t solved, I can’t keep waiting,” he said.
To keep warm while sleeping outside, he wore four layers of clothing; Her baggy pants were cinched with a drawstring.
Doctors hope Chicago can formalize its approach. And they say they will continue to do it, because for some it is personal.
Dr. Muftawu-Deen Iddrisu, who works at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, said he wanted to give back. Originally from Ghana, he studied medicine in Cuba.
“I come from a very humble background,” he says. “I know how it feels. I know someone once did the same for me.”
-Translation by Jose Luis Sanchez Pando/TCA
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