The Caridad Center of Boynton Beach:
Where Doctors and Dentists Make a Difference
by Krista Martinelli
They begin lining up outside the door as early as 5am, waiting to be seen by volunteer doctors, dentists and other professionals. Primarily migrant workers, these are people who live right around the corner from Palm Beach County gated communities and golf courses. Although they are typically hard workers with a strong sense of family, they live below the poverty level and usually have no health insurance. There are mothers, fathers and children waiting for hours to get in. Once they get into the waiting room at 8am, it's not a typical South Florida waiting room scene.
"No one complains," says Director of Program Services Veronica Bernardo. Everyone is patient and just happy to be getting much-needed treatment. Kids are generally well-behaved.
"The kids are so appreciative. One of them said to me, "How nice that you are taking care of my Mommy," says Dr. Farokh Jiveh, who practices dentistry in Royal Palm Beach at Smiles By Jiveh and volunteers his time along with his staff approximately every other Friday.
"If there's a language barrier, they find a way to communicate anyway. They hug you, they cry, they express themselves in different ways," explains Diane Gant who assists Dr. Jiveh as his Administrative Coordinator.
"Any time you help someone in need, it gives you such a good feeling," says Christi Hetzel, who also assists Dr. Jiveh as a dental hygienist.
It all began in 1989 when a couple of ambitious and caring women, Caridad Asensio and Connie Berry, founded the Migrant Association of South Florida. Even before that, they had started an after-school program for migrant children, quickly finding that the kids needed a lot more than just academic help.
"They needed clothing, food and medication," explains Carmen Nieves, Caridad's Clinic Administrator. So they opened up a double-wide trailer to provide some medical services to children and their families. They had 300 patients lined up outside the trailer, waiting to be seen on the first day. The need was tremendous. Ever since, Caridad Asensio and Connie Berry have been gathering strength and resources to meet the need. In November of 1997, they officially opened the Caridad Center in Boynton Beach. It's a phenomenal place (right at Boynton Beach Boulevard by the Turnpike), where goodwill spills over and smiles come easily.
With over 500 volunteers, including 100 licensed doctors and 55 licensed dentists, they provide treatment for diabetes, gynecological services, mammograms, x-rays, laboratory testing, medication, health education and preventative medicine. It's estimated that the Caridad's services save local hospitals between 3 to 5 million dollars on an annual basis.
"Our goal is education and prevention and keeping people out of the emergency rooms," says Carmen Nieves. She estimates that their services prevent 7,000 people from visiting the local ER's each year.
Nieves explains that in many cases, people living in poverty do not have transportation and need to take a taxi to get to the Caridad Center or to an emergency room.
"I have driven patients to the ER myself," says Nieves, who wants to prevent them from being charged with an ambulance bill. Their patients come in from all over Palm Beach County. One third of the patients are children. They get 90 days of healthcare immediately. Then they go through an eligibility process. Patients are asked to provide a photo ID, proof of income and proof of a home address. They are uninsured or underinsured and must be at 200% of the Federal Poverty Level or less.
For example, according to the guidelines, a family of four qualifies (at the poverty level) if their total annual income is $20,650 per year (or $1,721 per month). So a family earning twice that (at $3,442 per month) would also qualify for assistance at Caridad. "If they have no other place to go, they become a part of our regular family of clients," explains Anna Marie King, Development Director.
"Our patients come from over thirty different countries," says Veronica Bernardo. She notes that they are currently in need of more interpreters who can speak Haitian Creole.
While many of them are still migrant farm workers, the landscape is changing. Million dollar homes are sprouting up where farms used to be. Many of these workers are scrambling to find a new living as their world changes before their eyes. Bernardo explains that these workers are the same people who do our housecleaning, work on our roofs, construction projects and often care for our children as nannies.
Staff members at Caridad are proud of their organization and the way it gives back to the community. For every dollar donated, 89 cents is spent on program services and only 11 cents is spent on administrative costs. Caridad reaches beyond health care services, also providing 1:1 tutoring in afterschool programs, running a soup kitchen where healthy meals are prepared, donating turkey dinners to families at Thanksgiving and donating gifts to over 2,000 children each holiday season.
Small miracles happen at Caridad every day. While I was interviewing a nurse who heads up their diabetes education program, I overheard half of a phone conversation which I could not ignore. We were sharing the office and this staff member was raising her voice on the phone (all for a good cause).
Natasha Dominguez, Patient Care Coordinator, works passionately to find solutions when surgeries or other procedures are needed that go beyond what Caridad can provide. She was advocating for a 12-year-old Haitian girl who was blind in one eye and on the verge of going blind in the other eye, suffering from a detached retina. They had almost found a solution, but the girl's mother arrived at a Bascom-Palmer Hospital in Miami with only $1.50 in her pocket and the hospital was going to turn her away without the $200 co-pay. After many, many phone calls, Dominguez found a doctor willing to do the procedure and attempt to save her eyesight, free of charge...all in a morning's work. In another series of phone calls, Dominguez found a doctor willing to perform a surgery free-of-charge to take care of a patient's multiple cancerous brain tumors. The hospital waived a $40,000 bill for this woman.
Recently a little boy came to Caridad with a hip displacement, which caused one leg to appear shorter than the other. They sent him to the Shriner's Hospital in Tampa where the necessary surgery was performed. Donors paid for the family to stay in a hotel in Tampa while the operation was going on. Without their Patient Case Management program, the Caridad Center would simply be turning people away if the right medical specialist was not in their directory of volunteers at the right time. Thanks to the generosity of the community, many of the problems are solved. And in many cases, these are life or death situations.
There are almost too many good things going on at the Caridad Center to mention. According to Veronica Bernardo, each staff member is actually doing the job of three or four people. There's an unusual employee climate, where-despite the hard work-people are completely happy in what they do each day. Their reward is in the simple act of helping people.
At the next-door soup kitchen (which uses the space owned by the Caridad Center), volunteers feed 250 to 300 people a day. Last year 122,237 people were served. For just $1.16, they're able to feed a person lunch and provide him with a take-home meal too.
"Success comes in being interested in these families," says Jezabel Maisonet, RN, who heads up their diabetes program as a Health Educator. Maisonet received the Hands and Heart Award in 2006, presented by the Palm Healthcare Foundation and the Palm Beach Post. She exemplifies compassion and caring in her work, making a profound difference in patient's lives.
Maisonet reminds families that diabetes is the sixth top reason for death in the United States and educates families about healthy diets. She feels that she can work more closely with her clients because "she's been there." At first, clients don't usually believe her. But she has a Palm Beach Post article in her files on the subject of people living in poverty in Palm Beach, which shows pictures of her own family.
"Here's where you have to be humble," says Maisonet. She came from Puerto Rico and initially lived in a trailer with her husband and three daughters. She was a registered nurse, but couldn't find a job when she first came to Florida. She went knocking on the doors of all the major local hospitals, but no one would hire her. So the family lived in an impoverished state, as they continued to search for gainful employment. When she knocked on Caridad's door, they embraced her-because of her enthusiasm, solid program ideas and bilingual capabilities.
Now in her third year as the Director of the Diabetes Program at Caridad, Maisonet has come a long way and accomplished a great deal. She started a Diabetes Prevention Program for kids. At the end of the year, when the children graduate, she asks them to wear traditional costumes from their native countries and to prepare their native food in a healthy way. She puts on fall and spring health education fairs each year and now has 35 vendors lined up for the next one in May.
The biggest challenge, according to Maisonet, is that it's difficult to talk with people about the concept of a healthy diet when they have so many other issues on their minds.
It takes time, but Maisonet finds a way to help people, emotionally, physically and with their diets. If a family doesn't even have a refrigerator, she makes it happen. "We try to help these families when they are in need and then we help them when they are stronger to really succeed," says Maisonet.
"What disturbs me is when people come to South Florida and say that people are superficial here. There are so many people with good hearts right here. They could be making a lot more money in the corporate world," says Development Director Anna Marie King.
The Caridad Center is located at 8645 West Boynton Beach Boulevard, (561) 737-6336. They have varied hours from Tuesday to Saturday, plus evening clinics. Donations of clothing and other used items can be made to Faith Farm in the name of the Caridad Center.
Visit their website for more information at www.caridad.org
Attention...
The Caridad Center Needs Volunteers and Donations! Would you like to volunteer? Call Veronica at (561) 853-1623.For donations or to hear about the current "wish list," contact Anna Marie King at (561) 853-1622.
Urgently Needed: A pediatric endocrenologist who is willing to volunteer time. Also needed: an allergist, a dermatologist & other specialists. Call Carmen Nieves at (561) 853-1623.
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