‘God’s healing hands’

DALTON — Leticia Peinado doesn’t have the money to see a doctor when she or one of her four children gets sick.

Peinado lives in a trailer park in Dalton known as “Mexico Chiquito” or “Little Mexico,” where many of the 500 residents are out of work or barely scrape by on a low income. Many of the people living in the 150 trailers that make up the neighborhood don’t even have money for food and clothes.

So paying for proper health care was out of the question. That is, until September, when members of the Dalton Hispanic Seventh-day Adventist Church opened a free health clinic in one of the abandoned trailers there.

“It’s great,” Peinado said in Spanish through a translator on Sunday. “I don’t have money to pay for a doctor and these services. So I can take this opportunity to get better.”

Doctors and medical personnel volunteer at the clinic twice a month — the first and third Sundays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. — to offer basic medical services and check-ups. They refer patients to other clinics when other services, such as X-rays, are necessary.

But the services offered at the Centro Hogar y Salud — or Center of Home and Health — are more than just physical. They offer counseling, Bible studies and English classes, as well as providing patients with clothing and food when they’re needed. They even throw birthday parties for the children living in the trailer park.

“God is blessing us and continues to bless us,” said Wismeal Sanchez, an ordained Adventist pastor and a radiological technician living in Ooltewah, Tenn., who volunteers his time to help with the clinic. “We want to be (God’s) hands. Jesus healed first and then said ‘follow me.’ We’re following Jesus’ example of healing and meeting basic needs first. To say ‘follow me, and I’ll help you’ doesn’t work.”

Sanchez says volunteers do not push people into a religion or a certain way of thinking or require them to attend Bible studies in exchange for health care.

“Most of the people here are Catholic,” he said. “We’re supporting them and the beliefs they already have. We’re not trying to change them... We don’t teach religion, but we teach biblically based principles on living healthy. We combine the body’s needs with spiritual needs.”

Lee Whitaker, a family practice physician in Chattanooga, and his wife Cassandra, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Chattanooga, volunteer the first Sunday of each month at the clinic. Both are Seventh-day Adventist medical missionaries, who have volunteered in Haiti and Africa.

“There’s a need here” for the clinic, Lee Whitaker said. “That’s what the church is for. A lot of people say they can’t see (a doctor) because they don’t have health insurance. Well, they can see me. There’s help available. We have people willing to help without a dollar sign motivating them.”

Whitaker, who sees a lot of cases of high blood pressure and diabetes at the clinic, says there are many similarities to the people he sees in the clinic in Dalton and those he’s helped overseas.

“Lots of people have lost their jobs here in Dalton,” he said. “I’m seeing similarities between the stress people are experiencing here and the stress people experienced in Haiti. I saw a 50-year-old who was depressed and had anxiety. He thought he was having a heart attack.”

Cassandra Whitaker says she sees anywhere from eight to 15 patients each time she volunteers.

“Our main emphasis has been on wellness, proper nutrition and exercise,” she said. “They are very receptive. We realize we do have needs in the U.S. to meet. The people here are not able to go to other health clinics. So for some, this is the only health care they are receiving.”

The conditions may not be ideal — with a small exam room containing a cot and a closet of supplies on one end of the mobile home and a curtain dividing a consultation area from the waiting room on the other. Metal folding chairs line the waiting room, which has a table for lab work in the back.

While some may scoff at the idea of having a medical clinic in a trailer park, Whitaker said she’s worked in much worse conditions. Overseas, doctors usually work under a tent and don’t have the access to medical supplies like they do in Dalton.

Sanchez said he hopes the idea spreads to other churches.

“This is in the experimental stages,” he said. “We’d like to take this idea to other churches. We need more health clinics.”

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To volunteer at the Centro Hogar y Salud or for more information contact Manuel Mendizabal, pastor of the Dalton Hispanic Seventh-day Adventist Church at 706-264-8671. Doctors who specialize in an area are welcome to volunteer, as well as nurses and other medical personnel. Doctor who don’t want to work in the clinic, but are willing to accept referrals free of charge or at a discounted rate are also encouraged to contact Mendizabal.

Non-medical personnel can also volunteer. Volunteers do not need to speak Spanish. There are translators on site.

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The Centro Hogar y Salud medical clinic will accept any patient who has a hard time accessing medical care or needs counseling. It is at 1455 Bay Drive, off Underwood Street, in Dalton. It is open the first and third Sundays of the month from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

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