Southern New Mexico medical facilities strained to meet the needs of migrants
Lauren Villagran, Searchlight New Mexico
Published 11:58 a.m. MT Feb. 7, 2019
https://www.demingheadlight.com/story/news/2019/02/07/nm-hospital-health-care-clinic-migrants-asylum-seekers-ice/2789058002/
ANTELOPE WELLS - Half a dozen children gazed up at the camera, their eyes wide beneath hats and hoodies, hands buried in their pockets or nuzzled in the necks of their mothers. Floodlights illuminated some faces and left others in darkness.
It was after midnight in New Mexico’s remote Bootheel region, and with the temperature hovering near freezing, a Border Patrol agent snapped the photo. Nearly 150 miles away, the tiny emergency room of the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City — the nearest 24-hour hospital — was on notice. Some of the children would need medical care for illness, others for injury. […]
Hospitals and clinics from Silver City to Deming, Lordsburg, and Alamogordo have treated [migrant] children for flu, dehydration, rashes, scabies, sprains and other ailments. Border Patrol reported that one of the adults in the group of 306 that arrived last week was suffering from a “flesh-eating bacteria,” or necrotizing fasciitis — an infection that rarely spreads person to person.
Dehydration, poor nutrition and harsh weather leave migrants susceptible to stomach viruses and the flu, and then there is the emotional trauma of leaving behind family and country. For the kids, “the risks are enormous,” said Marlene Baska, a physician assistant who runs a clinic in Animas — a Bootheel ranching town with a population of 267 — that sees children in Border Patrol custody. […]
On Dec. 26, Hidalgo County Manager Tisha Green fired off “an urgent request” to then governor-elect Michelle Lujan Grisham and the state’s congressional delegation pleading for assistance.
“Our Hidalgo County Emergency Medical Services team consists of seven full-time employees and five volunteers” who cover 5,000 square miles, she wrote. “At the very least we can say they are stretched very thin. Please send emergency medical services to assist us with the overwhelming number of immigrants coming in daily.”