‘Sana, Dona Ana’ Health Care Initiative Revisited
DONA ANA, N.M. – Dona Ana County is one year into a health care initiative developed to help people with little to no medical insurance find treatment for certain conditions.
The health care initiative is called “Sana, Dona Ana.” or “Heal, Dona Ana.” The program helps people get proper care for diabetes, or offers financial assistance to pay for for prescription drugs, or physical therapy after recovering from an accident. It even addresses teen pregnancy.
The nearly $1 million dollar initiative is funded by Memorial Medical Center. Monday, Dona Ana County officials looked at the initiative’s progress. For diabetes, the program helps patients get expensive monitoring strips that check blood-sugar levels for prescriptions, the initiative can help qualifying patients with vouchers that help pay for some of the cost of their medicine.The program will alsohelp some to get access to orthopaedic follow-up visits for injuries.
Sana, Dona Ana will also start educating parents on how to teach their kids about safe sex and birth control. Pleased with the results, county commissioners say the need for health care assistance is never ending.
“Remember that while we see these problems as big in Dona Ana County, there is a much bigger problem here. Health care and health care reform is something that everyone needs to look at. If you look at New Mexico, we just were ranked as the second worse state in the country involving people who don’t have health care insurance; just behind texas,” says Dona Ana County Commissioner Bill McCamley.
The county is only one year into the program andthe hope is to have better results after its long-term run of about five years.
