Baptist Health System (BHS) earned recognition recently by the Alabama Hospital Association for its efforts in improving the health and lives of more than 3,000 Hispanic workers in the Oneonta area. The efforts come through the work at the Chandler Mountain Migrant Clinic.
BHS was awarded the association’s Community Service Award for helping to establish the clinic, which is a medical missions partnership project with Samford University’s Ida V. Moffett School of Nursing.
About 2,000 Hispanic/Latino nomadic farm workers arrive in the Chandler Mountain community every year during the April through September tomato season.
Many can’t speak English, have no health insurance and don’t have proper clothing and household supplies.
Founded in 1998, the Chandler Mountain project provides these workers with free convenient health services and essential equipment and supplies.
“At the school of nursing, we are always looking for ways for our faculty to practice along with students,” said Jane Martin, assistant dean for the graduate program at Samford and a member of Valleydale Baptist Church, Birmingham.
“We got a call from a Baptist church in the area that had some concerns about Hispanic children not being in school and possibly not receiving medical attention. When we got there we found there was a great need for all kinds of services, not just health issues,” she said, noting social issues were of particular importance.
Beginning a partnership
Seeking to meet all of the needs of the migrant workers and their families, the nursing school partnered with BHS and began a two-day medical clinic designed to care for and educate these farmers who generally have no other option for medical care.
“The first summer we worked out in the tomato fields from the back of a mobile van,” Martin said. “We now have a little clinic facility that was once an old school on Chandler Mountain. We have taken an assortment of students from Samford — divinity students, business students, nursing students — to serve as interpreters and help us with our work. We’ve actually written nursing courses for our students to come and take care of Hispanic migrant workers and their families.”
Since the clinic began, BHS has provided funding for the project.
“This was really undertaken as a missions project as opposed to any type of business venture,” said Tom Sanders, vice president of human resources and administration at BHS and member of Concord Baptist Church, Calera.
“Basically, we saw there was a very compelling need there and we had the ability to meet that need. We had the health care delivery system. They [Samford] had the primary care manpower to actually be able to go out into the fields. It just goes back to the [Book] of Samuel. God said ‘I need someone to go for Me’ and Samuel said, ‘Here I am Lord, send me’.”
Through this program, BHS attempts to fulfill its mission of being a witness to God’s love through Jesus Christ by ministries that enhance the health, dignity and wholeness of the people that they serve, Sanders explained.
“The commitment of Baptist Health System is to embrace the Hispanic/Latino community to help them assimilate in this community to serve their needs,” he said. “One of our mission values is advocacy, speaking for those that have no voice. We’re speaking for this group of people that really has very limited voice in our society now.”
In addition to BHS’s assistance, the Woman’s Missionary Union has provided support services and assistance to the migrant families in the region.
Martin states that Samford is considering expanding the program both in the services provided and areas served.
“We are looking for different funding opportunities to go along with BHS’s funding so that we can do a better job for the people and what they need,” she stated. “We would love to provide dental services. Their dental problems are pretty overwhelming to us even in the children. We want to offer some eye services. There are many other areas that need help as well.”
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