Clínica Médicos: Serving the Community Through COVID-19 and Beyond

Without a doubt, 2020 has posed many challenges inside of our community, for patients, and for health care workers. Clinica Medicos, from the beginning, recognized early that the burden of COVID-19 would weigh heavily inside of the Latino community, which we care for so deeply. The timeline of our efforts began in March 2020 when we placed ourselves on the frontline and administered our first COVID-19 tests. At that time, there was such a shortage of PPE supplies and tests to administer, along with high turnaround times for results, that placed real panic inside of the emerging pandemic. Our team recognized that those with already existing barriers to healthcare were going to be disproportionately affected and lost inside of a complicated medical system, especially those who were uninsured and undocumented. Our charge was to forge a path whereby testing and the delivery of healthcare inside of the pandemic would be equitable and direct. Great strength arose from the many community partnerships that merged on account of trusting that we would remain open and reliable in the delivery of medical services to our Latino community.

In concert with the Hamilton County Health Department, La Paz, the United Way, the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga, Baylor Laboratory, and

private donations, we forged a path to provide free access to all those who came to our clinic for COVID testing, symbolizing our mission to care for the most vulnerable in our community. We built a dedicated site to testing, brought rapid testing in-house, too, specifically so that school children could return to school safely and promptly, workers could return to employment, and illness addressed quickly. And this mission reached beyond COVID-19 testing. For example, the entire month of April 2020, we gave free healthcare to anyone who walked into our clinic as we saw the trials facing our patients: lost wages, quarantine, confused messaging, jobs put aside to teach children, declining economic stability, and heightened anxiety. Our hope was that the measures taken on by our team and our partners would offer a point of stability inside of the lives of our beloved patients.

Through it all, despite the challenges of 2020, many wonderful things have still happened inside of the doors of Clinica Medicos: Children got ready to go back to school, patient’s medical problems were met with compassion and appropriate care, and pregnant women delivered health babies. Our next initiative is to provide bilingual, culturally appropriate social work and mental health services to the Latino community to fill a large need inside of our city. So, the work continues.

It has been our honor for us all to serve through Clinica Medicos and to be a fixture of compassion seven days a week so that no one’s health is put aside and so that all have a medical home that feels like family. A sincere “thank you” to all who have supported our cause along the way! “ In April 2020, we gave free healthcare to anyone who walked into our clinic as we saw the trials facing our

patients: lost wages, quarantine, confused messaging, jobs put aside to teach children, declining economic stability, and heightened anxiety.