Telemedicine a relief in Valley

Fast-growing 'colonias' receiving doctors' care via TV, Internet hookup09:12 PM CST on Friday, February 11, 2005Associated PressALTON, Texas – With money scarce and clinics overwhelmed, sick children from the sprawl of shack housing behind Cantu Elementary often just stay home.DELCIA LOPEZ/AP Dr. Margaret McNeese of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and Cantu Elementary School nurse Sandra Llanes use an otoscope on Belia Reyes, 7.At worst, they get sicker.At best, they miss several days of class from a seemingly minor illness.Cantu this week joined other schools around the country in using telemedicine, a television and Internet hookup that allows doctors to see patients from afar. At Cantu, Houston doctors look down throats, listen to heartbeats and diagnose skin infections.Officials and parents are hoping new equipment can help combat the numerous illnesses among children in the 2,300 or so colonias that dot the Texas-Mexico border."There's a lot of people that are coming from Mexico, they don't have any health insurance," said Veronica Garza, a 31-year-old parent of a sixth-grader. "I know of a couple of people, their kids have fevers but they don't take them to the doctor."Colonias –the Spanish word for neighborhoods – are unplanned immigrant communities that sprouted in the 1980s. Many areas lack plumbing, electricity, drainage and paved roads. Authorities have tried to improve conditions and prevent new colonias, but they've continued to grow. Officials estimate 500,000 people live in colonias .It's an atmosphere ripe for diseases, said Kathleen McBride, director of border health projects for the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, which is providing doctors for the telemedicine program.The border has some of the highest rates of diabetes in the nation, she said. Children end up with parasitic infectious diseases not seen elsewhere in the United States. Poor dental health leads to a host of other problems. And obesity is a growing concern."The parents come home with fertilizers and pesticides on clothes, the rest of the family, they're exposed to it," she said. "So they all end up with some type of dermatitis. We've had 11- or 12-year-olds who've never had a toothbrush."Alton, once a remote farm post, is one of the fastest-growing Rio Grande Valley towns, thanks largely to colonias. The population jumped 25 percent in the last decade, and last year the city of 4,384 opened its fourth elementary school.Across the Valley, farms and new construction offer plenty of jobs. Many homes are jam-packed with illegal immigrants squeezing in with families.The need for health care became especially apparent when the health sciences center started sending a mobile health clinic."Every time they went down to the Valley, they were just inundated," said university spokeswoman Shannon Rasp. "Our mobile van cannot be there all the time."For about $45,000, Cantu was equipped with a special otoscope, dermascope, stethoscope and monitor. Sandra Llanes, the school nurse, operates the equipment while doctors in Houston make diagnoses. A psychiatrist can do remote consultations for problems such as depression or attention deficit disorder.Telemedicine got its start with astronauts in the 1960s and has been used on Indian reservations, in Eskimo villages, on military bases and in private homes. It is spreading in rural schools, thanks largely to private grants.In Alton, the funds were part of a grant from a Houston trust.