Health Project to Serve Impoverished Families

Carmen Espinoza of Pacoima learned a hard lesson two years ago when she took her eldest child to the emergency room of a county hospital after he complained of stomach pains. The hospital took him in, concluded the pains were nothing serious, and promptly released him.

Days later, however, the real pain hit the Espinoza family, one of many San Fernando Valley families too poor to afford medical benefits.

“They sent me a bill for $900,” Espinoza recalled. “They didn’t even give him a pill!”

As Espinoza later discovered, a local health-care clinic could have examined her son free of charge. But she didn’t know that at the time, and the experience made her think twice before seeking medical help.

In an effort to help families like the Espinozas receive health-care services and learn about services available to them, nonprofit community and legal aid organizations on Saturday formally kicked off the Vida project at an assembly at Santa Rosa Catholic Church in San Fernando.

The Espinozas and dozens of other local families, as well as San Fernando city leaders, activists and health-care providers, attended Vida’s launch. It was started by Valley Organized in Community Efforts and San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services, and is being funded by a $500,000 grant from the Woodland Hills-based California Endowment.

Vida, Spanish for life, brings together a team of public and private neighborhood clinics to provide outpatient and preventive medical services to working families in the northeast Valley.

Just as important, the program, which will initially serve about 300 families this year, will seek to educate impoverished families about services they are entitled to, and get their input on how best to provide the care they need. Eventually, the program will be expanded to cover 1,200 families.

“It’s really one of the first serious attempts to address the problems of the uninsured, especially in low-income areas,” said Ronald E. Hansen, health services deputy to county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.