Daily Lobo new mexico
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
MONday September 8, 2014 | Volume 119 | Issue 16
ECHO informs inmates to inhibit infections By Sayyed Shah
Through the Peer Education Project, professors have trained hundreds of New Mexico prison inmates to spur awareness within the prison system of how to avoid chronic diseases like Hepatitis C and HIV. As part of the program, a group of professors and health practitioners visit New Mexico prisons and train a selected number of volunteer prisoners for 40 hours. “It started in 2009. We go in and train prisoners on how to be educators around infectious diseases, particularly Hepatitis C, HIV and addictions,” said Karla Thornton, an infectious diseases physician and a Health Sciences Center fac-
ulty member in her division. To date, the Peer Education Project has trained 307 New Mexico inmates as prison Peer Educators, and 6,784 New Mexico inmates have received peer health education. The program is operational in seven prisons. “They love the training,” Thornton said. “They get to know about chronic diseases and how to prevent them. They learn a lot about how to educate people. They also learn to be educators and run workshops and things like that.” The Peer Education Project is part of a larger venture, Project ECHO, which is run by University professors and health practitioners. According to the Health Sciences Center website, 40 percent of the
New Mexico prison population suffers from Hepatitis C. There was a dire need of awareness among prisoners to prevent transmission of diseases like Hepatitis and HIV/ AIDS, according to officials of Project ECHO. “We get amazing feedback; it is a really successful program,” Thornton said. “They have accomplished their tasks successfully.” Project ECHO was initiated by Dr. Sanjiv Arora, a liver specialist, in 2003. It came at a time when New Mexico had few practitioners treating Hepatitis C and they could not meet demands of the patients. “New Mexico is a large state and there was only one treatment place in Albuquerque, which was hundreds of miles away from many
patients,” said Andrea Bradford, communication manager at Project ECHO. “Treatment from Albuquerque would end up pretty costly and difficult for patients.” Bradford said this was the reason Arora imagined the ‘simple but revolutionary idea’ of ECHO, where he could train an army of specialists to treat Hepatitis C. Some of the prisoners get involved in community health projects as volunteers once they leave the prison. “We have a lot of them contact us after they leave the prison system, and we got them involved in community health work,” Thornton said. From Sept. 11-13, Project ECHO will host its MetaECHO conference,
which will feature talks from health care partners who are taking the ECHO model and replicating it in their own communities around the world, according to the conference’s website. Gov. Susana Martinez will kick off the conference with a speech on Thursday, Thornton said. Other speakers will discuss the successes and challenges of implementing the ECHO model in other countries. The conference will be held at Hotel Albuquerque in Old Town. Sayyed Shah is the assistant news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at assistant-news@ DailyLobo.com, or on Twitter @ mianfawadshah.
Sergio Jiménez / Daily Lobo / @SXfoto
Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver steps outside the Bernalillo County Courthouse after the Second Judicial District Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage last year. Toulouse Oliver was recently featured on MSNBC’s list “‘30 in 30’: Women Candidates to Watch in 2014.”
MSNBC names NM candidate to ‘watch in 2014’ By Jonathan Baca Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver was recently featured on MSNBC’s list “‘30 in 30’: Women Candidates to Watch in 2014.” MSNBC’s list featured female candidates from around the country in a variety of races, and Oliver said she felt privileged to be the only woman from New Mexico on the list. Democrat Toulouse Oliver is running for New Mexico Secretary of State in November against Republican Dianna Duran. She has
been active in highlighting issues important to woman voters, and has stressed the importance of getting women to the ballot boxes this November. “I feel very honored, and I feel flattered that MSNBC chose to highlight this campaign and me, and I really hope that I can continue to do that justice,” she said. As county clerk, Toulouse Oliver’s job has been to oversee Bernalillo county’s elections. Officials in the Secretary of State position do the same for the entire state, so Toulouse Oliver said she feels especially qualified for the job.
Her campaign is focusing on protecting everyone’s right to have unfettered access to the ballot box, she said. This is an issue that she said is especially important to woman voters, who didn’t receive the hard-fought right until 1920. Toulouse Oliver said she is concerned about voting ID laws and rolling back early voting opportunities. The MSNBC article noted that Toulouse Oliver’s Secretary of State opponent, Dianna Duran, supports voter ID requirements. “It really evokes the days when there were concrete barriers in place — sometimes literally —
that prevented women from taking advantage of that right to vote,” Toulouse Oliver said. “So I’m really focused on reaching out to women on that issue.” Toulouse Oliver stressed the importance of encouraging as many women as possible to vote this November because the races will be tight, and the candidates who are most dedicated to protecting women’s interests will need every available vote to win. “With my fellow woman candidates, we are trying to appeal to woman voters statewide. Woman voters tend to be a very powerful
voting bloc; women actually make up a majority — not just of the population, but of the registered voters here in New Mexico,” she said. “We know that when women turn out to vote, they have the power to really affect the outcome of elections.” Toulouse Oliver also discussed the disparity between men and women both in elected office and as candidates. According to MSNBC’s “30 in 30” article, women make up only 24 percent of state legislators in the U.S.
see
MSNBC page 5