Ill Woman Tough Case for Doctors, Diplomats

A mentally disabled illegal immigrant, sick with tuberculosis and diabetes, has become the unwitting focus of a policy debate over immigration and public health.

While Amada Morales, receives treatment at Ventura County Medical Center, federal authorities, diplomats and local health officials are struggling over how to treat the woman humanely without risking the health of residents.

“We have no legal conduit to care for her here or to give her legal status, and there really shouldn’t be . . . ,” Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said Friday. “She demands 24-hour private care to make sure she’s taking her medication.”

County health officials declined to comment, but Gallegly said they had asked for his help in getting her citizenship so she could have welfare and health benefits. Gallegly, who advocates stringent immigration standards, said he rejected that suggestion.

The 53-year-old woman came to the county’s attention when the Oxnard family who cares for her dropped her off at the hospital before they left for a trip, a source said.

Before arriving in the county’s care, the woman would stand on Oxnard street corners, begging for coins, the source said.

The Mexican Consulate became involved, working to find the woman’s family, who may still live in Acapulco.

So far, the Mexican consul titular working with Morales said officials have had little luck finding the woman’s relatives because she gives them little information to go on. In fact, they believe that her surname may be Barron, not Morales.

“We don’t know if she still has family or if there is family that wants her back,” said Luz Elena Bueno Zirion, the consul titular. “This is a very important thing. We need to know where is the best place for her so that her health will be OK . . .

“We are not asking for her to stay here. We only want the public health department to keep her until we find a place for her in Mexico.”

Gallegly said he and public health officials are working with the consulate to ensure that the woman, believed to have the mental capacity of a 6-year-old, receives “humane treatment” in her home country. In the interim, she is being cared for in Ventura County.

“We have to put her in a program in her native country so as to protect the citizens and legal residents here from her disease,” Gallegly said.

Until then, Morales acts bewildered by the events unfolding around her.

“I don’t know exactly how she feels,” Bueno Zirion said. “This is not easy for her.”

Based on source accounts, it appears that Morales was brought to the states years ago to work as a domestic laborer. Members of the Morales family, who could not be reached for comment Friday, have said that they found the woman on the streets of Oxnard three years ago and took her in. She has since adopted the Morales surname.

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Without a source of income, the woman would beg and sell cans for change. Her disability is severe enough that she cannot care for herself, a source said.

The Morales family wishes to continue caring for the woman, named after the Catholic saint of love, Bueno Zirion said. But health officials are not convinced the family can ensure adequate treatment for her illness.

Roberta Scott, a public health nurse specializing in tuberculosis, said she could not confirm whether the woman was a patient. But she said the county’s communicable disease office could not, and would not, allow an infectious person to roam the streets.

People who are infected with tuberculosis--an airborne communicable disease that can cause severe coughing, weight loss and death--are given a series of antibiotics until they test negative for the illness--which usually takes about two weeks, Scott said.

The names of people infected with the disease are rarely released, only in situations where a person willfully resists treatment and wantonly risks the health of others.

“Our responsibility is to the public health . . . ,” she said. “At this time, we do not have anyone in the county of Ventura who is communicable and walking the streets without treatment. Any communicable person would be at home until rendered noncommunicable.”

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In very rare circumstances, public health officials can hospitalize someone with tuberculosis and give them food and shelter to ensure they are not reinfected, Scott said.

An immigration authority in Los Angeles said he was not familiar with Morales’ situation, but it struck him as an aberration.

Were Morales to land in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, she would be treated before being sent to Mexico, said Leonard Kovensky, the assistant director for detention and deportation in the INS’ Los Angeles District, which includes Ventura County.

“We would provide the necessary medicine for the person to bring home,” he said. “We would not remove or deport someone without first treating their medical condition . . . They wouldn’t be left at the airport without any medicine.”

However, the chances of Morales being detained or deported appear slim, he added, given her illness and the INS’ emphasis on detaining felons rather than people who abide the law. If she were subject to deportation, a family member or lawyer would have to represent her.

“We can’t take someone with the mind of a 6-year-old before an immigration judge,” he said. “They would have to have a guardian appointed so their rights would be represented at a deportation hearing. It’s not fair to put someone who isn’t mentally capable in front of a judge when they’re not aware of what’s going on around them.”