In L.A., Community Health Workers Are Part Of The Medical Team

(By – Anna Gorman, Kaiser health News)

Month after month, Natalia Pedroza showed up at the doctor’s office with uncontrolled diabetes and high blood pressure. Her medications never seemed to work, and she kept returning to the emergency room in crisis.

Walfred Lopez, a Los Angeles County community health worker, was determined to figure out why.

Lopez spoke to her in her native Spanish and, little by little, gained her trust. Pedroza, a street vendor living in downtown Los Angeles, shared with him that she was depressed. She didn’t have immigration papers, she told him, and her children still lived in Mexico.

Then she mentioned something she hadn’t told her doctors: She was nearly blind. Read more…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Notice: The “Read more…” link provided above connects readers to the full content of the posted article. The URL (internet address) for this link is valid
 on the posted date; socialsecurityreport.org cannot guarantee the duration of the link’s validity. Also, the opinions expressed in these postings are the viewpoints of the original source and are not explicitly endorsed by AMAC, Inc.; the AMAC Foundation, Inc.; or medicarereport.org.