Shoestring Budgets and Boot-Strap Health Care

Launched by UC Davis students, Clinica Tepati health center has for decades quietly filled a health care gap for lower-income families in the Sacramento region, many of them workers in the agriculture and service sectors. College student volunteers, some training to be doctors, conduct free health assessments and offer wellness education to all comers. They’re overseen by UC Davis Medical Center doctors and retired physicians who serve as on-site proctors.

THE ASK: The clinic in downtown Sacramento is open one day a week—Saturday—and is run on a shoestring. Donations will help support basic costs, including screenings for diabetes, hypertension and cholesterol. The clinic also needs funding for its nutrition workshops, vaccine drives and the dental hygiene kits that it hands out to families.

DIABETES CRISIS: Diabetes disproportionately hits the Latino community, clinic student administrator Alejandra Romo says. The center wants to expand its diabetes awareness and education program this year with more intensive classes for people who are diabetic and prediabetic, to be taught by medical students, offering in essence a valuable learning experience for both workers and future doctors.

ALEJANDRA’S VIEW: Romo, 21, is among those future doctors. She plans to be a gynecologist. She has acted since age 10 as a translator when her Spanish-speaking parents have sought medical treatment. But more often, she has seen her parents forgo treatment, even when seriously ill, because they lacked insurance. “Many of us are privileged in having insurance, and we can’t see the impact of not having health care,” Romo says. “It’s important for us to make sure that health care is not a privilege but a right.”