Photograph by Skye Dunlap

Don't Get Testy: Community health director Julie Gallelo (right) tests Maxine Vantine for high blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol on American Indian Community Care Day.




Health matters at Indian Care Center

Community Care Day is new way to promote health among Valley's Indian population

By Kara Chalmers

Juan Manuel Flores, 54, tried to prick his finger. He was having trouble since his hands were hardened with years of work. He sat at the blood testing table at the Indian Health Center of Santa Clara Valley on Meridian Avenue in Willow Glen, across from community health director Julie Gallelo, who suggested he try his pinkie, since it's usually the least callused finger.

Gallelo was giving Flores, who has mild diabetes, a free blood-sugar screening, just one of the many free services offered at the first American Indian Community Care Day at the center.

Every third Wednesday of every month from now on, medical appointments at the center will be reserved for American Indians. Executive Director Peter Long says there are members of more than 80 tribes living in Santa Clara County, among them Cherokee, Navajo, Lakota, Miwok and Chumash.

There will be free immunizations, visits with representatives of community employment and training agencies that offer services to American Indians, refreshments, and education on available health-care benefits.

One important focus of Community Care Day is prevention and treatment of diabetes, the third-largest killer among American Indians, next to substance abuse and accidents, Gallelo says.

Although the center has offered medical, dental, mental, nutrition and community health services since 1978 to the approximately 9,000 American Indians in the San Jose area, Community Care Day is a brand-new way to promote preventive health care. Among the American Indians who use the center, disease prevention is not a huge priority, according to Gallelo.

"We wanted to sponsor a day for American Indians to reinforce the importance of preventive health and make it a priority," Gallelo says. "A lot of other issues put preventive health at the bottom of the priority list for American Indians, below housing, employment, child care or more pressing health issues. Usually they wait until they're the walking wounded."

With Community Care Day, the staff at the center hopes to promote disease prevention, while meeting some of the other needs of American Indians. Vendors, who are all American Indians themselves, were invited to set up booths in the courtyard of the center. There was a representative from the Candelaria American Indian Council program, which offers American Indians basic education, job training and placement. There were also booths for the American Indian Education Center, Healthy Families and Medi-Cal.

Some American Indian families may not know that certain health-care opportunities exist, and therefore do not take advantage of them, Gallelo says. She noted that for some qualifying families, the monthly payment for the Healthy Families insurance program is as little as $4 per month.

"Materials on health care are never put out that are culture-specific to American Indians," Gallelo says. "You can pick something up in English or Spanish or Vietnamese on a health program, but there's really nothing out there that targets American Indians specifically. So they are more likely to pick up and read our fliers."

The center provided free blood-pressure, blood-sugar and cholesterol screenings for everyone who walked in the door on Community Care Day. Also offered were free dental screenings and a free intake session at the mental health clinic.

The day was completely full of appointments but Gallelo says she expected about a 20 percent no-show rate.

"Most community clinics have a high no-show rate," she says. "The population we are dealing with may be low-income or transient, and they might have a hard time making it to appointments."

Juan Flores is on medical leave for diabetes and liver disease from his job at Goodwill, where he worked for three years.

He has been coming to the center for about three months and says he feels it is like a neighborhood. He comes to check his blood pressure and blood sugar but also for alcohol-abuse counseling.

"[The Center] has helped me, it has given me direction," he said. "This is one of the best clinics I have seen so far and I have been in ones in Texas and Arizona."

Tobi Iverson, 30, another patient at the center for a physical exam, recently moved to the Bay Area from Seattle. She located the Indian Health Center here as soon as she moved.

"It's nice that there is a place that Indians can come, since we're in such a big city and there are so few, as far as the native population goes, that live here," Iverson said.

Council Watch

All-news networks sank to new lows with JFK, Jr. coverage

Sports Briefs

Charlie Wedemeyer All-Star Football Game