It's one thing to cut funding for a good program. It's quite another to kill it entirely.
Check out this article from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
A good program that helps Hispanic students become doctors is in danger of being ended entirely. Check below the flip for the story.
The article says:
Noé Romo knows that he is, quite literally, one in a million. Mr. Romo, a 25-year-old from East Los Angeles, wants to become a doctor, and he is not shy in admitting he needs all the help he can get.
As a medical student at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, he has turned again and again to the college's Hispanic Center of Excellence for financial support, friendship and guidance. The center was hailed by community leaders when it opened in 2001 as a crucial way to address what they saw as a disturbing, little-known trend: the underrepresentation of Hispanics in the medical field. According to the American Medical Association, only 3.2 percent of physicians in the United States are Hispanic.
The Hispanic Center of Excellence teaches medical students and doctors of various backgrounds about Hispanic culture and conducts research on Latino health issues. Yet its main focus is recruiting and encouraging Hispanic students to pursue health care careers. The center does this in part by providing academic counseling, scholarships and professional networking.
We have a large Hispanic population in America. Would be great, wouldn't it, to have doctors from that population to help care for the community, to be as Noe Romo says, "physicians who not only speak the language but understand the culture."
Well that would make sense, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the agency within Health and Human services that administers the grants, is ending their support of this program. As the article states:
The college in the Bronx is one of 34 institutions across the country that had received Centers of Excellence grants from the Department of Health and Human Services. The three-year grants help train, recruit and retain medical students and medical faculty members from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. In 2005, Congress approved $33.6 million in grants to the 34 centers. This year, $11.8 million was approved for four centers.
New York Congressman Joseph Crowley is trying to save the Center:
http://crowley.house.gov/...
From Crowley's website:
The Bronx, NY - US Congressman Joseph Crowley (D-Queens & the Bronx), chief deputy whip, today was joined by Dr. Hal Strelnick of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in urging federal funds be restored to the college's Hispanic Center of Excellence. Drastic cuts in federal funding threaten to close the Hispanic Center of Excellence next year.
Over the last two fiscal years, Congress has severely cut funding for the Centers of Excellence grant program, effectively zeroing out almost all federal money available to majority of institutions, including Albert Einstein College of Medicine's Hispanic Center of Excellence in the Morris Park section of the Bronx. Rep. Crowley has led efforts in Congress to restore funding for the Centers of Excellence program by authoring letters co-signed by House colleagues in support to both the leadership of the House Appropriations Committee and the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
"The clock is ticking for the future of the Hispanic Center of Excellence, and Congress and the Administration need to act before this innovative program that has broken new ground in community health care is forever lost," Congressman Crowley said. "The Hispanic Center of Excellence at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a vital component in improving health care for under represented and under served minority communities. It also has provided minority students with the opportunity of realizing their dreams of becoming doctors, often returning to practice medicine in the communities of their origin. By shutting down this program, Congress would effectively dim the lights not only students receiving an education, but also on the under-served communities in New York that will only continue to struggle for better health care."
Dr. Hal Strelnick, the director of the Hispanic Center of Excellence at Einstein College of Medicine said, "When the Census Bureau has told us that Hispanics are widening their lead as the nation's largest minority group and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has told us that health disparities are worsening for Hispanics, it makes absolutely no sense to eliminate the only federal program explicitly designed to recruit and train Hispanic health professionals..."
I think this could be a very good action item for us at Daily Kos. We could go to Crowley's website and urge him to continue the fight for this worthwhile program. As it stands:
Recently, Congressman Crowley, along with 50 Members of Congress sent a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services, Michael Leavitt, and Administrator Elizabeth Duke of the Health and Resources Services Administration asking for a 12-month, no-cost extension of grants for the Centers of Excellence. While the Centers of Excellence did not receive a full 12-month extension, Administrator Duke did grant the Centers a nine-month extension allowing these vital programs to run until May of 2007. While the time is still too short to find alternative funds, Congressman Crowley hopes for more funding to be allotted in the FY2007 Labor-Health and Human Services Appropriations bill scheduled taken up in the House of Representatives in November.
It's amazing to me -- with all the problems we have concerning health care in this country, all the money we are spending in tax cuts and war toys, here's a program that can make a difference to so many people, so of course, let's cut the funding.
One more reason to get the Democrats back in power. Let's start investing in America again, instead of investing in Bush and Cheney's Evil Empire.