Program enhancements include expanding primary health services to neighboring communities and structuring the current Spanish-speaking diabetes class as a systematic program of education, monitoring and evaluation. Out in the sandy, rocky terrain outside Tucson are people living in isolated areas. They are not necessarily indigent, but many are senior citizens who cannot easily make the 15 minutes into the city for healthcare. The Parish Nurse Program helps bring weekly checkups to these remote communities, so medication can be monitored and symptoms controlled. Cox says the additional federal funding can extend the health network to outlying areas like this.
Future funding can also create a self-perpetuating cycle of bringing healthcare to the community.
This would not only provide a rewarding career for participants, but they would be bringing a much-needed service back to their friends and neighbors. KidsCare Arizona has ranked low in the number of children who receive healthcare coverage. An estimated 600,000 state residents are without health coverage, many of them earning too little to pay for health insurance themselves and too much to qualify for an assistance program. About 94,000 of the uninsured are children. Carondelet's KidsCare Program targets children in Tucson and Nogales, location of another CHN hospital, Holy Cross.