“Viewpoints” is a place on Chapelboro where local people are encouraged to share their unique perspectives on issues affecting our community. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work, reporting or approval of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com. If you’d like to contribute a column on an issue you’re concerned about, interesting happenings around town, reflections on local life — or anything else — send a submission to viewpoints@wchl.com.
Why Medical Outreach Workers Are Unsung Heroes
A perspective from Jack Leland
You won’t see them unless you’re looking for them.
Their jobs are done behind the scenes, outside our collective societal gaze.
That’s because their work involves reaching a population that is largely hidden: the thousands of agricultural workers in North Carolina who prop up an 111-billion-dollar industry. Medical outreach workers are the unsung heroes who keep those essential, yet hidden, agricultural workers safe and healthy.
The North Carolina Farmworker Health Program (NCFHP) supports the eight statewide programs that reach agricultural workers in 70 of N.C.’s 100 counties. In 2023, NCFHP served 10,159 agricultural workers through medical, dental and behavioral health visits, as well as by providing interpretation, case management, health education and transportation.
As a North Carolina Schweitzer fellow and third-year medical student at UNC, I have had the privilege of working alongside the tireless outreach workers of Southeastern N.C. This group, as well as their counterparts throughout the state, has dedicated their lives to caring for some of the most vulnerable people in our state. They epitomize the concept of meeting patients where they are, an ethos that becomes essential in serving agricultural workers who live in geographic isolation.
A typical day with an outreach worker may look like this: In the dead heat of a North Carolina summer, we first meet at one of the site offices to load remodeled vans with resources like secondhand clothes, canned vegetables and dental hygiene products. We then drive those vans through country roads, passing scenic fields of tobacco, cotton and corn until we reach a destination that doesn’t have an address. After pulling onto a poorly marked gravel trail, we cautiously avoid potholes until we see stretches of barrack-style housing that signify we’ve arrived. We quickly set up foldable tables and stack our supplies neatly in preparation for distribution.
Then we wait.
Supporting agricultural workers means that your work absorbs the unpredictable nature of their lives. You may plan to meet with an agricultural camp at, say, 8 p.m. – but the workers may not get off until 10.
So, we wait.
After the agricultural workers have completed a day of difficult work in cultivating crops like sweet potatoes, cucumbers and watermelon, they are shuttled back to their homes via repurposed school busses. They approach our tables with apprehension until they see faces they recognize. Many of these workers are Latin Americans possessing H2-A visas, which gives them temporary legal status. Many return each year to the same farms to do the same jobs, all the while saving money to send to their families, most of whom are still in poorer countries like Mexico and Guatemala. Returning to the same locations every year means they see the same outreach workers every year.
And thus, trust is built.
That trust — fostered over years of intimate conversations conducted in Spanish, English and indigenous languages — enables agricultural and outreach workers to collaborate in accessing medical care.
Physical health is essential for agricultural workers to support themselves and their families, but medical access is often limited because of transportation, language and financial barriers.
But through medical outreach workers, those chasms are bridged. Outreach workers coordinate medical appointments, deliver prescription medication and conduct screening assessments like blood pressure and glucose checks. The importance of that trust was shown during the Covid-19 pandemic, as outreach workers faithfully tested, treated and vaccinated farmworkers. In Sampson County, for example, a stunning 78% of agricultural workers were fully vaccinated.
North Carolina outreach workers have difficult jobs. They have essential jobs. And they are underpaid.
If you are reading this, you likely care about our great state. You care about our agriculture, an industry that makes us proud to be North Carolinians.
So, I ask that you take a closer look at our agricultural system. Next time you pass a beautiful stretch of N.C. farmland, look at who is there working hard to feed us. Think about how their bodies must suffer and how they must need medical care. Think of who makes it possible for them to get that treatment.
And please, think of supporting them with a donation to the NC Farmworkers Project, a nonprofit group working tirelessly to build a better future for farmworkers and their families.
“Viewpoints” on Chapelboro is a recurring series of community-submitted opinion columns. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work or reporting of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.
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