Speech #900181355

We could use almost double that amount of money simply to do a more effective job in the existing projects. In addition. we have many applications for new projects which the Public Health Service has been forced to turn down because of lack of funds. The migrant health program provides the kind of health care which most families have long regarded as routine care. That is. pre- and postnatal care. obstetric service. immunizations. examinations. and treatment for ordinary ailments. But. it does this with a difference. The migrant health program. operating through the various State health departments. goes out into the migrant labor camps and. indeed. into the field sometimes. to find its patients and bring the care to them. Before this program was launched. there simply was no medical care available for migrant farmworkers. except for grave emergencies and frequently not even then. We have made some progress since then. But we have a long way to go. It is still the exception. rather than the rule. for the migrant farmworker and his family to have available even the barest minimum of medical services. To illustrate: In 1964. the infant mortality rate among migrants was at the level of the country as a whole for 1949. The maternal mortality rate in 1964 was the same as the national level of a decade ago. Mortality from tuberculosis and other infectious diseases among migrants in 1964 was two and a half times the national rate. approximating the national rate of more than a decade ago. Just 2 months ago. in one of the wealthiest States in the Nationa migrant with an emergency illness was rejected by four hospitals because he could not assure payment of the bill. At the fifth hospital where he obtained attention. doctors said the patient had only about 2 hours left to shop around for hospital treatment. Of the more than 1 million migrants. including workers and their dependents. 750.000 still live and work outside the areas served by existing migrant health projects. This group includes by conservative estimates: Over 6.500 persons with diabetes who are without adequate medical care. Over 5.000 migrants with tuberculosis who are traveling and working with their disease undetected and untreated. Over 300 children under the age of 18 who have suffered cardiac damage as a result of rheumatic fever. These children are unlikely to receive treatment for prevention of reinfection and further cardiac damage.