Student service organization provides health care to medically underserved communities
GALVESTON, Texas - The William Randolph Hearst Foundation has contributed $150,000 to the endowment of Frontera de Salud, a student-run service organization at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston that delivers much-needed health care to medically underserved communities in South and Southeast Texas.
The Hearst Foundation in 2005 awarded $50,000 to establish Frontera de Salud's endowment. By increasing the endowment's size, the foundation ensures that the organization can care for even more people and continue serving as a model training program in which medical, nursing and allied health students can make an immediate impact in economically impoverished communities.
Members of Frontera de Salud, or "health border" in Spanish, work together to offer primary health care to residents in communities like Brownsville's Cameron Park, an enclave of 7,000 residents near the Texas-Mexico border that is statistically the poorest area in the United States.
Since receiving the Hearst Foundation's first contribution, the organization has established chapters at the University of Texas Health Science Centers in San Antonio and Houston. Students in Galveston, San Antonio and Houston also serve patients in communities in and around Corpus Christi, Laredo, San Antonio and Galveston County during home visits and at local clinics. UTMB's organization is working to establish chapters at other academic health centers in Texas.
Dr. Kirk L. Smith, co-founder and UTMB director of Frontera de Salud, said the Hearst Foundation's support will allow the organization to add more communities to its service area and offer other health care services, such as screenings for women and children. "Frontera de Salud just celebrated its 10th anniversary, and this endowment from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation ensures that we will have the dedicated funds that will not just continue our outreach services but expand them," said Smith, the Arnold P. Gold Assistant Professor of Family Medicine. "We greatly appreciate receiving support from such a prominent national foundation to ensure a bright future for Frontera and give hope to those we serve."
Smith, then a student at UTMB, helped start the organization in 1998 after witnessing the health conditions of many impoverished South Texas communities. Smith and a handful of his fellow students had traveled to the Rio Grande Valley to conduct their third-year clerkships at public clinics. While treating patients, they learned of the bleak situations most residents faced when seeking health care. An estimated 54,000 working poor live in the region and cannot afford health insurance. They earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, and most are too young to receive Medicare insurance.
That is why, said Dr. David L. Callender, UTMB president, the Hearst Foundation's contribution to Frontera de Salud is so vital to the state's citizens. "At a time when one in four Texans lacks health insurance, Frontera de Salud is providing health care where it's most needed," Callender said. "I'm grateful that the William Randolph Hearst Foundation appreciates the crucial health care services that Frontera de Salud delivers to our state. I'm also proud that the Frontera de Salud organization gives our students the chance to demonstrate compassion and medical service."
Paul Dinovitz, executive director of the Hearst Foundations, said the board of directors is pleased to help ensure that Frontera de Salud will flourish. "Building Frontera's endowment will guarantee that future UTMB students will have the support to continue their training, as well as to provide health care in needy communities," Dinovitz said.
The Hearst Foundation, Inc. was established in 1945 by philanthropist and newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. In 1948, Hearst founded the California Charities Foundation, the name of which was changed to the William Randolph Hearst Foundation after Hearst's death three years later. The Hearst Foundations are dedicated to the advancement of education, culture, health and social service for underrepresented and underserved populations. They are independent private philanthropies separate from The Hearst Corporation.