Rise among Hispanics using health department

More Hispanics are now using health department
by Philip D. Brown, Your Daily Journal

The number of illegal aliens may be dropping in North Carolina, but the those seeking medical help from the Richmond County Health Department has tripled since 2007.

There is no way to determine with certainty the number of undocumented immigrants in the state of North Carolina, but the Pew Hispanic Center recently released a study which found the number of illegal aliens in North Carolina declined from about 375,000 in 2005 to 350,000 in 2008. That represents about 3.8 percent of North Carolina’s total population.

It also found 250,000 illegal aliens hold jobs, accounting for 5.3 percent of the state’s workforce.

A spokesperson for the office of Gov. Bev Perdue said despite the fact the state has an Office of Hispanic/Latino Affairs, there is no real answer to the question of the Hispanic population or naturalization recorded at the state level.

“It’s a federal question,” Chrissy Pearson said.

Representatives from the federal Immigration and Naturalization Services could not be reached for comment.

Merrill Smith is the editor of the “World Refugee Survey,” he said he is not an expert on the North Carolina population, but he doubted that people are being naturalized.

“There are barriers that keep them from doing that,” he said. “When they don’t have their green cards it is very difficult for them to get citizenship.”

His best guess as to where the illegals are going: “They’re probably going back home.”

Richmond County Health Director Tommy Jarrell explained that the Hispanic population makes up about 17 percent of the total number of patients the health department sees.

The department doesn’t track whether those they assist are documented to be in the United States or not.

“But in the maternity clinic it’s more like 65 or 70 percent, and in the family planning clinic it’s well over 50 percent,” he said. “A lot of these people are uninsured, and don’t have Medicaid, so they end up coming to us because they don’t have anywhere else to go for prenatal care.”

In the county’s state of the county health report, demographics are only broken down into white and non-white.

Jarrell explained the health department cannot report people who are undocumented when they access services.

“We are set up to help anybody who’s in need of medical care,” Jarrell said.

The health department is required by law to hire interpreters and pay their salaries, he said.

Jarrell pointed out preventative care offered to a pregnant woman is less expensive than the money it would take to treat a baby who is born with complications.

“We are seeing the number of Hispanic people rise every year,” he said. “It continues to grow.”

Richmond County Social Services Income Maintenance Supervisor Barrett Hollimon explained he’s seen a rise in the number of Hispanics accessing services from social services.

He shared statistics from March 2007, March 2008 and March 2009 to illustrate the increase. It is important to note these figures have no delineation between those who are in the country legally and illegally.

In March 2007, there were 167 people who checked Hispanic when applying for services. There were 5,702 people who identified themselves as a race other than Hispanic, and nearly 1,500 people who did not specify their ethnic background.

In March 2008, 228 people identified themselves as Hispanic, while 6,311 identified themselves as not Hispanic or white, and 1,818 declined to identify their ethnic background.

In March 2009, 459 people accessing services identified themselves as Hispanic. Another 7,222 identified themselves as not Hispanic, and 2,157 people did not specify their ethnic background.

By these figures, there was more than a 300 percent increase in the number of people of reported Hispanic origins accessing services from the county government.

At the same time, the number of people total who access these services has also grown, at a more modest pace of about 30 percent.

Hollimon explained that Social Services provides food stamps and other assistance only to American citizens.

However, he said, when an undocumented person has a child in the United States, that child is a citizen.

“So, if there’s a home with two undocumented parents, and two children born in the United States, their allowance would be for a household of two,” he said.

Hollimon said the department has grown more culturally-understanding in its interactions with people of Hispanic origin.

“It has affected the way we operate,” he said. “We’ve added interpreters, and moved people into dual roles, so they can also serve as translators. When we didn’t have that, it was a major barrier to providing these services.”