A welcoming place: Clinic helps Spanish immigrants at parish

Medical assistant Alma Banegas, left, prepares to take the blood pressure of Francisco Ruiz inside the mobile van of the Gennesaret Free Clinics. The van visits St. Mary Parish in Indianapolis every Saturday to provide medical care to Hispanic immigrants and parishioners. Banegas and Ruiz are members of St. Mary Parish. (Submitted photo)

By John Shaughnessy

Dr. Ruben Hernandez misses his family.

It’s one of the main reasons the native of Honduras can be found most Saturdays at St. Mary Parish in Indianapolis offering free medical treatment to Hispanic immigrants and parishioners.

“I’m away from my family in Honduras and this lets me get to know the people in the church,” says Hernandez, a third-year resident in family medicine at the ­

Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. “It has helped me with my life here.”

Dr. Janet Arno has a different reason for helping at the parish as part of the volunteer staff of the Gennesaret Free Clinics.

She is aware of two Hispanic immigrants who died because a language barrier prevented them from getting the medical help they needed.

“It’s hard to get through the system,” says Arno, a physician and an associate professor of medicine at the I.U. School of Medicine. “I’m happy to act in whatever way is needed—whether it’s just being a gateway to the greater medical community or providing care to people who never get it.”

The clinic at St. Mary Parish is one of the latest outreaches of the Gennesaret Free Clinics, a grassroots, faith-filled effort that is marking its 20th year of providing free medical and dental care to the poor and the homeless in the Indianapolis area.

Bringing the organization’s mobile van to St. Mary’s every Saturday is a natural way of caring for people in the Hispanic community, Arno says.

“We opened it in September,” says Arno, who is also a member of the parish. “It’s a very bilingual parish. Father Mike O’Mara was aware of health needs by parishioners that really weren’t being met. For Spanish-speaking people, churches are safe places where they are used to coming with their needs. It’s a natural thing.”

Young parents bring their children to the weekly clinics for immunizations. Husbands escort their wives who are pregnant. Friends accompany friends, trying to show them there are people concerned about their medical needs. About 20 percent of the patients are referred to Wishard Health Services in Indianapolis for further evaluation.

“One person asked, ‘How much do I owe you?’ ” Hernandez recalls. “I told her she didn’t have to pay. She was very thankful. Most people are.”

The efforts of the doctors and their team of volunteers at the mobile clinic have also touched their lives.

“My faith has been strengthened, just by seeing how people are helping others,” Hernandez says.

“All of us, as a group of volunteers, are awed by the fact that this has worked,” Arno says. “This could not have happened without God’s help and Gennesaret. To be able to take care of people is such an honor. You feel the presence of God in them.” †