Health facilities and personnel are usually swamped by this sudden flood of people creating extraordinary demands for health services. Since starting this program with a handful of communities participating there are now 117 such projects in 35 States. In addition to ordinary. in the field. health assistance the act was expanded to include emergency hospital services In recognition of the fact that many migrant workers will have dire need for hospital treatment and no way to get It unless it is available free or at a minimal cost. Community hospitals cannot bear the brunt of this demand alone. In the bill now before us recognition is made of another factor which affects the whole problem and which we have not dealt with until now. Migrant workers not only have a great need for health care and tax the local facilities beyond endurance but they also bring with them in many instances diseases and other health conditions which then affect all of the seasonal workers in the area. whether migrant or local. Also a migrant worker may not always be migrant. Seasonal employment can be a way of life for many people who do not move about or at least do not move very far. When acute health problems attack seasonal workers it Is not easy and probably not desirable to sort out those who will be treated under one set of rules and those who happen to arrive on a truck to be treated under a different set. H.R. 14733 allows use of funds to provide health services to seasonalas opposed to migrantworkers when doing so will contribute to improvement of conditions for migrants. More and more communities are coming to realize that providing health care for migrant workers is a direct contribution to the public health of an entire community. It is not easy to overcome generations of neglect combined with cultural barriers. The health standards of a large shifting group of our population must be raised gradually.
Keywords matched
migrantworkers migrants migrant Migrant