A Story of Three Women
This is a story of three young women in Juárez, Mexico. These three stories are intertwined by virtue of the asylum and the leadership of its founder, Pastor josé Antonio Galván, who has created a family atmosphere where not only the patients but the members of the larger “family” provide an enormous amount of support for each other...
A Prescription for New Mexico’s Children
As a physician, I know that when you have a cure for an ailment, you use it. You don’t waste time, because you know that delay only makes the condition worse. New Mexico has a problem. We’re at the bottom of nearly every indicator of child well-being. We know what works and we’re actually giving the right medicine to a few lucky kids. But most are not getting the cure, even though we know it works and we have the resources to get it to them.
Kids need more than health care. They need a comprehensive set of services that promote healthy development. High-quality early care and education is the prescription...
Advocating for the most vulnerable in Valencia County
Approximately twenty-four miles south of Albuquerque, Los Lunas, the Valencia County seat, has significantly fewer services and resources for children and caregivers then Albuquerque. Yet it has individuals, agencies and law enforcement doing what they can to help all children in the community. With one of the highest rates of substantiated child abuse and neglect in New Mexico, Valencia does not have the level of child specific services necessary to respond adequately. Relying on access to services and resources in Albuquerque is difficult, expensive, and can add to stress for law enforcement and others, as well as trauma for the children they are trying to serve.
The 2012 rate of substantiated child abuse for Valencia County was a distressing 28 children per 1,000 compared to the State's rate of 11.4, Bernalillo’s 8.8 and Sandoval’s 7.5...
Running: A Life
An ending is often a beginning, which is why school graduations are called commencements. When my marriage, my suburban life in Maryland and my job in Washington ended in 1974, I began running.
Running day after day, I discovered the city I had never known, a different city from the newspaper and government offices where I had spent my working life, a city of mixed races and a babel of languages, of cheap restaurants and parks that unspooled forever. I discovered, too, a life that was different from the one I had lived and left. Running helped me figure out how to fill the hole that was left when that life evaporated...
A Pig named Melissa
Yeira pulls back a strip of chicken wire and points into the little pen. There is Melissa, a tiny pig. She had been given to Yeira and her family by Pastor José Antonio Galván, the founder of the nearby mental asylum, Visión en Acción where Yeira’s grandmother, Elvira once worked as the cook. They, in turn, were going to fatten Melissa for a birthday celebration for me next January. This is not only an extraordinary gift from this impoverished Juárez family but a new insight into the role of animals here...
Too Little Isn’t Enough
I write this on March 29th, 2014. The inscription period for President Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act has been moved from two days from now to mid-April, as long as subscribers start their sign-up process by March 31st. This has been President Obama’s signature effort. He prioritized it at the expense of many others. Under the guise of “bringing everyone to the table” he gave seats at that table to the very industries that have kept healthcare in the United States so perverse and expensive: the large insurance companies and pharmaceuticals. Not surprisingly, they had their say and, in many cases, got their way...
Political Science to the Rescue: A Scholar’s Look at the Status of Healthcare Reform
Next week is the deadline to sign up for health insurance under the nation’s new health care law and, once again, the rhetoric is heating up, both pro and con. Last week, Larry Jacobs, professor and chairman of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, entered these troubled waters here in New Mexico, bringing a fresh, analytical look at the implementation of the Affordable Care Act not just here, but throughout the country.
Jacobs spoke in Albuquerque, his presentation sponsored by UNM’s Robert Wood Johnson Center for Health Policy and the Scholars Strategy Network...
The Root Cause of Northern New Mexico’s Drug and Alcohol Problems
A quick perusal of the NM Department of Health Substance Abuse Epidemiological Profile for New Mexico, 2013 shows that NM:
-Has an alcohol-related death rate that’s 1.9 times higher than the national average
-Has the highest drug-overdose rate in the entire country
-Has a suicide rate that’s 2 times the national average
Without any doubt, Northern New Mexico owns the worst reputation for drug-related issues, as Rio Arriba County owns the state’s highest drug related death rate. The data shows that we, as a community, MUST do something to try and get our drug usage and death rates lowered. But what do we do?...
Harmful pesticides not needed around the house
We are using way too much pesticides in our society, in our homes, in our schools, in public buildings and even in our forests. I have covered the many problems pesticides cause many times in my columns. We have to have a system where we use safe and effective methods for pest control. Some companies do this and I recommend them in some instances. Many companies prefer to spray pesticides because it is easier and you really don't have to know what you are doing. Just spray and pray – spray pesticides and pray you kill something...
The Miracle of Alfredo
It’s a miracle, says Pastor Galván as we talk about the sudden recovery of Alfredo Ortiz, one of the mental patients in his asylum in Juárez. The problem is that I don’t believe in miracles. So how did this man recover from three months of being catatonic?
Alfredo was born in Juárez on June 9, 1977, appears to be a humble young man and is a skillful worker. In April 2012, his family committed him to Vision in Action, this private mental asylum founded by Pastor Galván...