He's a handsome man of 44, with dark hair and a ruddy complexion. He's friendly, and even when answering critics' charges he speaks in a warm, amiable manner. He acknowledges that CHF has experienced hard times. But he blames government agencies for ignoring the plight of low-income Latinos without medical insurance. To show the work his clinics do, he takes a reporter around CHF's Whittier Boulevard health center on a busy morning in January.
Many people wait in hallways to be seen, and some look like they've been waiting a long time.
But the place seems clean and uncluttered. Caregivers in white coats help patients and seem generally cheerful about their work. In other words, the place looks like what you'd expect from a large, busy inner-city health clinic. Diaz arrived at CHF after several years at the Watts Health Foundation, the region's largest community clinic system. He had grown up in Boyle Heights and attended USC as a pre-med.