The Struggles of the Undocumented

At McCafferty Health Center, we have a large population of immigrants from all over the world. We attract an especially high number of immigrants from Latin America due to the fact that our staff is bilingual in English and Spanish. A 2003 Institute of Medicine study showed that Limited English Proficient (LEP) Americans tend to receive less care, and lower-quality care, than the majority (white) population. For those LEP patients, the hurdles to accessing quality health care can be especially difficult. In addition, if a patient is undocumented, it becomes even more challenging. I would like to describe the experiences of a few of my LEP patients at McCafferty so that we may better understand the hardships they face in life, especially in relation to their health needs.