Free 2-day clinic serves children of immigrants

OGDEN — Five-year-old Yolanda entered kindergarten this year with a clean bill of health and all the required immunizations.

Getting a physical, an eye exam and the dreaded shots at the Children's Health Connection, an annual program aimed at meeting the needs of underserved inner-city children, didn't cost her illegal immigrant father anything. It might be the only preventive care they receive all year.

Once a year, Intermountain Health Care and the Junior League of Ogden transform Central Middle School into a health clinic. All services are free, including follow-up treatment.

Parents from all over Salt Lake City bring their children for physicals, dental exams, vision and hearing tests, developmental screenings. They line up — some in their best dress — long before the doors open at 9 a.m. More than two-thirds are Hispanic, and many of them are in the United States illegally.

The doctors and nurses who volunteer at the two-day event don't ask any questions about citizenship. They're interested in looking into children's ears and throats, not their documentation.

Yolanda was among nearly 2,000 children whose parents brought them in for checkups and vaccinations.

Her father doesn't want his name used because he is an illegal immigrant. He and his wife paid a coyote, who smuggles humans into the United States from Mexico, $5,000 to drive them across the border. His in-laws in the United States gave them the money. He has a job in a manufacturing plant but no health insurance.

His situation is typical of many undocumented immigrants in Utah. Without the Health Connection and other inexpensive clinics, many would go without health treatment.

"We are philanthropic, but at the same time, we want something out of it," said Sally Jones, who oversees the program for IHC. "We want a healthy community."

And undocumented parents and children are part of the community. Many would not seek care because they are unfamiliar with the system or fear revealing too much information about themselves.

"They need someone to guide them through this health-care maze," Jones said.

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