MIGRANT WORKERS: BOOTHEEL CLINIC IS THERE WHEN MIGRANT WORKERS NEED CARE

KENNETT -- Spanish music videos play on the television screen while preschool children gather around a table to color pictures in the waiting room of the Migrant Health Center in Kennett.

Their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles or older siblings wait patiently in chairs that line the perimeter of the room for a turn to see a nurse.

Farm workers from East Prairie to Senath attend the free clinic each Monday and Thursday night. The walk-in clinic is open from 2-10:30 p.m. on those days.

The clinic, operated by the Southeast Missouri Health Network, offers primary care services to the migrant population in Southeast Missouri. It is the only federally-funded migrant health center in the state.

Nurse practitioners from other satellite offices in Sikeston and Malden treat patients at the Kennett center twice a week. Office staff also provide translation services and transportation to area doctors' offices.

"We see a lot of the same people each year," said Sandy Sharp, program director at the center. "We have some established patients, and others are here for their first visit or come in looking for other services."

But the center will no longer serve as a foundation for the migrant population in Kennett. It is moving to Steele in the fall amid complaints from other service agencies about losing contacts, resources and translators. Steele is in Pemiscot County, about 15 miles farther south.

Although the move will take it out of Dunklin County where more than 50 percent of the migrant workers in the area live, the center will be able to offer better services to its migrant clients. Instead of having nurse practitioners visit twice a week, a health-care provider will be available five days a week in Steele, Sharp said.

But providing health care to migrant workers poses a unique problem. Most workers won't seek preventive care because they have no access and language prevents them from communicating. Instead, they only visit the clinic when they have a specific problem like infections or aching muscles.

Nurse practitioners at the clinic treat everything from aching joints to skin irritations and rashes caused by allergic reactions to pesticides. But most of the cases are the usual infections, earaches and sore throats, said Joan Petitt.

"We see a lot who work with chemicals so they have red eyes and rashes," she said. "But we see a lot of earaches and sore throats and upper respiratory infections."

One of the biggest health problems with the Hispanic migrant workers is diabetes. Some people go to the clinic seeking medications that they need but haven't taken in months because they weren't able to find a doctor or pharmacy, Sharp said.

Others who visit the clinic seek refills on prescriptions written in Spanish that must be translated for local pharmacists. Some only want to have their blood pressure checked, Sharp said. Hypertension is another major health problem of migrants.

Patients at the clinic can receive pharmacy vouchers and reduced doctors' fees. Staff members often schedule doctor appointments and tests for the patients who do not speak English.

HEALTH PROBLEMS

Since migrant workers move often, providing them with adequate and preventive health care is a difficult task. Most of the workers seen at the Migrant Health Center in Kennett suffer from the same ailments

*Heat exhaustion

*Aching muscles

*Sore backs

*Diarrhea

*Diabetes

*Hypertension

*Viral infections

*Upper respiratory infections

Often workers suffer skin irritations, rashes and red eyes caused by pesticides from the fields.

The center is the only federally-funded migrant health center in the state.