Grants from Kaiser Permanente helps Salud para la Gente, 5 others

- To help prevent the spread of COVID-19 among Latinos, who have been disproportionally affected by the virus, Kaiser Permanente is supporting community clinics like Salud Para La Gente as they work to increase access to health care to vulnerable residents.

Salud Para La Gente, or Health for the People, is one of six organizations in Santa Cruz County that received a total of more than $1 million in grants from Kaiser Permanente to support health care access for underserved people in 2020. The other grantees are Coastal Kids Home Care, Dientes Community Dental Care, First 5 of Santa Cruz County, Health Improvement Partnership of Santa Cruz County and Santa Cruz Community Health.

“We are proud to work with our community partners, like Salud Para La Gente, which are providing essential outreach to the most vulnerable in our communities,” said William MacLean, M.D., physician in charge of Kaiser Permanente Santa Cruz County. “We want to support those residents who are struggling during the pandemic and help assure they have access to the health care they need.”

Salud Para La Gente, a health care provider with 12 clinics and 43 years of experience to mostly Latino agricultural workers, received a $100,000 Kaiser Permanente grant to adapt to the needs of patients during the pandemic.

The provider, which sees about 30,000 low-income patients in a city of about 53,000, opened two large outdoor drive-through health clinics offering COVID-19 testing and vaccines, acute and preventive care including blood pressure and blood sugar screens, birth control, other vaccines and intravenous infusions of monoclonal antibodies for COVID-19.

Most of Salud’s patients are essential workers, providing food for the nation. They work low-paying jobs in a high-cost area, living in “crowded and substandard housing where an entire family may rent 1 room in a house where 3 other families are doing the same thing,” said Amy McEntee, DO, chief medical officer of Salud Para La Gente.

“We want to be able to provide these services and have this comprehensive approach,” McEntee said. “The money Kaiser Permanente is providing really allows us to do things in a more robust way to do the right thing.”

The need for health care among California Latinos during the pandemic is acute given the inequities of who gets infected. Latinos make up 39% of the state’s population but 46% of the COVID-19 deaths and 55% of those infected, according to the California Department of Public Health. It’s a similar situation in Santa Cruz County where Latinos make up 33% of the population but nearly 55% of the cases.

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