CLOSER TO HOME• 14,993: Number of Hispanics in Hamilton County in 2010; a 173 percent increase over 2000.• 4,664: Number of Hispanics in Bradley County in 2010; a 156 percent increase over 2000.Source: U.S. Census Bureau
NASHVILLE – With a Hispanic population that has more than doubled over the past decade, leaders in Tennessee’s health and education fields are getting creative with ideas for serving it.
Thomas Ozburn, CEO of Nashville’s Southern Hills Medical Center, said the hospital, which is in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood, developed a cash clinic after learning that “42 percent of Hispanics don’t have insurance, but that doesn’t mean they won’t pay.”
Ozburn, speaking at a summit of the Tennessee Hispanic Chamber of Commerce earlier this week, said getting many of the hospital’s Hispanic customers to focus on preventive care is a challenge. Many don’t have regular doctors and do not come in until they have a problem.
“Our emergency department has become our front door,” he said. “Our emergency department now accounts for 70 percent of admissions.”
But many of those admissions are not true emergencies. When that is the case, instead of turning the families away, “a valet picks the family up, drives them next door to the office and says, ‘Here’s your new primary care home,'” Ozburn said.
The hospital also has changed the way it does outreach to Hispanics.
“We have moved all our health fairs to a church setting,” he said.
Meanwhile, the state’s colleges and universities are struggling to attract and retain Hispanic students.
Claude Pressnell, president of the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association, said last year’s Complete College Tennessee Act challenged the state’s colleges and universities to nearly double the number of degrees they are granting by the year 2020.
“We can’t do that without Latinos,” he said, noting that they are a small percentage of enrollees, but also the fastest growing group.
Those colleges have found that attracting Latino students takes more than just printing brochures in Spanish.
“We have to have a community and a family approach to recruitment,” Pressnell said, saying the traditional approach of just talking to the individual student doesn’t work well.
“With the Hispanic population, the better approach is to partner with community organizations and churches and involve the entire family in decisions about financial aid and class schedules,” he said.
Jessie Garcia Van De Griek, who helps recruit Latino students for Nashville’s Lipscomb University, said one of the biggest challenges Latino students face is financial.
Last year the university accepted 137 Latino students, but only 35 enrolled despite the university’s efforts to help with financial aid.
Even some of those who make it face another obstacle at graduation: Some students, although they may have been in the United States since they were small children, were brought here illegally by parents and still don’t have legal status.
“The university is trying to figure out how to advocate for especially the nursing students so that they can be able to go into the work force,” Van De Griek said.
Pressnell said many of the state’s colleges are facing that problem.
“A lot of us hung our hats on the Dream Act, hoping it would pass,” he said, referring to federal legislation that would have given illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children a chance to gain legal status if they enrolled in college or joined the military.
The legislation passed the House but failed in the Senate in December.
“It’s a remarkable irony that we invest so much in the lives of these students and then basically say, ‘OK. See you later,'” he said.