Prenatal clinics cater to Hispanic mothers
Articles
When Ed and Tracey Cota opened their first prenatal care clinic on Atlanta's Buford Highway in May 1998, the small waiting room was packed with 80 patients on the first day.
"We didn't think it was going to be that busy," Ed Cota said...
Today, the Cotas run six clinics servingHispanic mothers, calledClinica de la Mamá (the Mother's Clinic), in metro Atlanta. By year's end, the couple expects to open three more locations, in Jonesboro, Gainesville and Dalton...
Since 1998, Hispanic mothers getting care at Clinica de la Mamá have delivered 15,000 babies in metro Atlanta hospitals.
Clinics offering prenatal care to Hispanics are opening all over the metro area, filling a void left by county health departments, which provide little or no perinatal care. Facilities such as Clinica de la Mamá provide alternatives to uninsured Hispanic mothers with low incomes, many of whom are undocumented. At Clinica de la Mamá, the average monthly income for a family of three is $1,200 to $1,400, Cota said...
For $1,200, women get nine months of prenatal care, which includes laboratory tests, prenatal vitamins, ultrasound exams and regular office visits. Hospital and delivery fees, which can total about $6,000, are extra. But CIMA will help patients get the delivery costs covered by Emergency Medicaid, which in Georgia pays for the deliveries of undocumented [illegal] immigrant women...
Health care providers such as Clinica de la Mamá and CIMA are the reason Maria Ines Leiva, from Honduras, started getting prenatal care for her third baby. She saw an ad for CIMA in a local Spanish-language newspaper and began going to the clinic in December..
Read the complete article.
