Health care advocates take action to help low income community in Cathedral City

Local health care advocates are taking action to help a low income community in Cathedral City.

“Desert healthcare district actually noticed a lot of strange statistics coming from this area,” said volunteer Christopher Montgomery.

On Sunday, a health fair was held and efforts were made to attack those statistics and to bring resources to the front lines for at-risk residents in the Dream Homes neighborhood. Montgomery said statistics from the Desert Health Care District showed residents have abnormally high emergency room and urgent care visits, as well as people who are uninsured.

“What’s wrong with their health? What’s wrong with the neighborhood? What’s wrong with government here? What’s wrong with infrastructure,” said Montgomery. “All these different things to try and figure out what’s going on here.”

The district joined forces with Loma Linda University.

“We tried to match what we’re screening to the most-prevalent health problems to the community,” said Lisa Roberts, the research director for Loma Linda’s School of Nursing.

Problems like diabetes, hypertension and obesity-related issues plague residents, said Roberts. The health fair not only provided immediate results for residents, but also an education on what they can do to better their health.

“Some people don’t know that they have health problems like diabetes or high blood pressure,” said Sergio Espericueta, who has lived in the community for roughly 25 years. “This motivates more people to take that kind of test.”

Hilda Velasquez has also lived in the neighborhood for more than two decades, and was one of five residents chosen to be a community health worker.

“Our job right now is to do the health assessment for the community and finding their needs. So, that’s what we’re doing right now,” she told KESQ News Channel 3’s and CBS Local 2’s Katie Widner.

Montgomery said the group was provided with vocational training to help get to the root of the problem.

“They’re going to try to get as many people here as they can to take part. That way it actually shows what this community thinks and not necessarily what some expert on the outside says the problem is,” he said.

The assessment will continue for the next couple of months, with hopes the results will help the district to figure out where the issues are stemming from and how the problems can be fixed.