Last week I sat down with Lisa Sanderson-Fox, a midwife who works at Casa de Salud, a clinic that treats everyone who walks in the door; this means the uninsured and the undocumented.
Located in Albuquerque's South Valley, the name means House of Health in Spanish and that is precisely what it is - a place where patients, and not the profits, are the number one priority.
The clinic has a medical doctor, a nurse practitioner, a midwife, an herbalist and an acupuncturist, a man who incidentally does not charge, but accepts donations. Each practitioner is trained in the use of flower essences, something which assists a patient in the realm of emotions, because an emotional balance is vital in the treatment of physical ailments, as we all know.
Services at the clinic include massage therapy, acupuncture, needle exchange, acute care, ultrasound and a drug rehabilitation program. Each day approximately 15 to 45 patients are seen.
What is the all important payment plan, that pesky financial matter that keeps many Americans awake at night. It is nothing less than a verbal agreement.
Casa de Salud is one in only a handful of its kind in the U.S. In part 2, I will talk about Lisa's work at the clinic's Well Women Center.