Clinic gives farmworkers primer on health

A one-story brick building that could be an office for any of a number of businesses serves as the primary source of health care for the hundreds of seasonal farmworkers who arrive annually in northern Beaufort County.

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Clinic gives farmworkers primer on health

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The Leroy Brown Center on St. Helena Island, a nationally designated migrant health center connected to Beaufort Jasper Hampton Comprehensive Health Services, has served 540 patients at its night clinic this summer.

The workers, who come in with complaints of backaches, high blood pressure or skin problems, are a major component of an $8.7 million crop-based agriculture industry in Beaufort County.

However, the staff at the center wanted to do more for migrant workers than just treat immediate problems. Thus, as part of the first National Farmworker Health Day on Thursday, the center invited workers and their family members to the center.

A van came to the migrant camps, picked them up and brought them to the center. There, they offered instruction on topics ranging from HIV to exercise and nutrition.

Because of relentless work schedules, the majority of the 20 who attended were women and children. Most of the men were in the fields.

"My objective is to promote and offer the best health and dental care to make the farmworkers' lives better," said Mari Donaghy, the center's community outreach coordinator.

At the center, the group marched and danced to Shakira while learning about how important exercise is to good health. After the briefing on exercise, the workers went to the next station where the benefits and importance of healthy diets were explained during a cooking demonstration.

Other topics related to the all-too-common diseases among Hispanic farmworkers such as diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, stress-related back problems, HIV and dental problems caused by poor hygiene, said center director Carolyn Davis.

But a key element in addressing such health concerns is earning the workers' trust, Donaghy said. She goes to the migrant camps several times a week with Joel Malleth, driver for the migrant health program, to bring patients to the clinic if they need a ride for appointments.

Without a personal relationship with clinic staff members, workers are hesitant to seek health care for fear of prejudicial treatment because they are Hispanic, Donaghy said.

The window for that trust is short, given how often the workers and their families move from town to town and the lack of transportaton once there.

But word gets around.

Elena Selvestre Hernandez, a farmworker who has gone to the clinic for two years, said the workers trust the clinic because of the way everyone has been treated in the past.

"The biggest experience is the way we're treated here. It makes it easy to get health care and being from other countries we often let our health go," she said. "One of the biggest fears is being treated differently because we come from other countries, and here we feel like we're treated equally."