Health Is Just the Beginning

We wanted to share a story with you about one of our patients. We have changed her name to protect her privacy.

“Rosa” learned about Culmore Clinic via word of mouth, and decided to enroll after receiving news of an irregular mammogram.  Originally from Honduras, Rosa is a single mother of two and rents one of the two bedrooms in her apartment to another adult to supplement income she receives from cleaning for a housing development company. About 10 days after enrolling, Rosa called The Clinic complaining of aches, fever, and loss of her sense of smell.  Clinic staff scheduled her for the onsite COVID-19 testing, but she did not make the appointment. Staff followed up with Rosa and arranged for testing the next day at another site through Culmore Clinic’s partnership with Neighborhood Health. 

Rosa pushed back indicating that she needed to go to work as she is the only breadwinner. She also said she was feeling a bit better and that she had limited contact with others in the work she did cleaning unoccupied houses. Staff understood the predicament Rosa was in, but explained to her that the novel coronavirus often behaves this way, and that she had been clinically diagnosed as positive for the virus and should stay home.

Rosa agreed to notify her supervisor that she could not come to work the next day so she could be tested and begin isolation. Culmore Clinic staff immediately contacted Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center to add Rosa’s household to the food delivery schedule and she was offered service navigation support to access community programs that can help with rental assistance and other pressing needs. Within 24 hours Rosa’s symptoms worsened again.  Her test actually came back negative – though the labs often come back as false negatives – but Rosa continued her isolation for another 10 days.  She was provided a pulse oximeter to monitor her symptoms and received daily check-ins from Clinic staff until her symptoms eased. She was also given gloves and masks for herself and children to help contain the spread of the disease.  Rosa recovered and is back at work, but she remains in Culmore Clinic’s care as she tackles other health conditions.

Stories like these speak not only to the medical needs of our neighbors, but the difficult choices they face every day as they balance basic survival with basic health management. This is a dilemma Culmore Clinic is working closely with other community partners to address. While each partner has its own particular line of expertise and critical service, we know that the overall health and well being of our patients is impacted by broader environmental stressors that we can’t solve alone.