POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE
HEALTH CARE
A Necessary Gamble
CARMEN ZUNIGA LEAVES HER HOUSE IN MCALLEN EVERY Monday, Wednesday, and Friday before dawn to go to a dialysis center about 4 miles away. Zuniga has had diabetes for nearly three decades; the disease has left her mostly blind and reliant on dialysis to stay alive. But her trips to the center have become far more dangerous as coronavirus spreads rapidly around the country. Now she worries that the very thing keeping her alive may be what kills her.
Health clinics in the Rio Grande Valley have reduced in-person visits, urging patients to stay home if possible. For many diabetics, who are at higher risk for coronavirus complications, not seeing a doctor regularly can be risky. For those on dialysis, missing even one session can have disastrous consequences. So Zuniga’s only excursions from home these days are to the center, where she sits in a room with about 20 other people for 12 hours every week. She worries that others aren’t taking the pandemic very seriously, but there’s not much she can do. “Mentally I’m scared. I get anxious,” Zuniga, 62, says. “I think I’m gonna die.”
I first met Zuniga when I was writing a story for the Observer on the crisis of diabetic amputations in the Valley. About one-third of residents have diabetes, triple the national rate, and the region is one of the poorest and least insured in the United States. The lack of access compounds: Uninsured people are more likely to skip medical care, exacerbating underlying health issues. Those conditions make COVID-19 more dangerous—but being uninsured means facing even more barriers to treatment if they do get the virus.
“It’s just a really crazy situation,” says Ann Millard, a retired Texas A&M University professor who has helped run a, or flea market, in Alamo for years. If testing were more readily available, it would be helpful for uninsured people even if they can’t afford treatment, she says, because they could isolate themselves from their family. But that, too, could prove unfeasible: Many, particularly those living in border colonias, don’t have the space, Millard says.
