Mayfield students advocate for school-based health centers

Sen. Martin Heinrich visited Mayfield High School on Thursday, Sept. 25 to hear high school students talk about the importance of school-based health centers.

Heinrich, a Democrat, visited the school to meet with three students, Leilanna Lopez, Noah Elliot Rico Ibarra and Isobella Munker, all high school seniors who spoke about the importance of Mayfield’s school-based health center. According to the New Mexico Department of Health, there are 78 school-based health centers around the state. Of those, 52 are contracted through the health agency and have the ability to bill Medicaid for the services they provide to students.

All three of the high school students who spoke with Heinrich said Mayfield's center has made a difference for both their mental and physical health.

Heinrich said Senate Democrats are grappling with the changes that are soon to take shape to Medicaid. The budget bill signed into law by Pres. Donald Trump cut federal Medicaid spending by an estimated $911 billion according to the Congressional Budget Office over the course of about 10 years. Heinrich said he and other Democrats in Congress want to restore Medicaid.

“The reality is, when we have healthcare that is available to the entire population, everything works better, including education. When you have access to mental and physical health, you are more successful and can go to college or the trade path and that will define your quality of life going forward,” Heinrich said.

Ibarra told Heinrich that the school-based health center at Mayfield has been really important for his mental health.

He said growing up in a Hispanic household, where mental health care is not common, he came to rely on the school's clinic.

Lopez said she was “going through a dark time,” when she was a freshman and sophomore and being able to go to the clinic really helped her mental health.

“I think it was very beneficial,” she said.

Munker said she is a student athlete and she has used the clinic as her primary care provider. She said that every physical she has received has been free. She said her access to a health clinic on campus was helpful because her mother works in El Paso.

“She didn’t have to take time off from work,” Munker said.

Ernesto Robles, area practice manager for La Clinica de Familia, said the organization runs the school-based health centers in the Las Cruces Public Schools.

“We have hub and spoke models. The high schools are the hub. Elementary schools are the spokes,” he said.

Robles said providers can provide telehealth to elementary school students with the help of a medical assistant.

Robles said La Clinica de Familia accepts any patient, regardless of legal status or ability to pay.

“If we get more uncompensated services, we go into deficit,” Robles said of the Medicaid cuts.

Robles said that with the Medicaid cuts, the clinic’s board could have to look at ending programs in order to continue to provide service. He said that forces more patients to go to the emergency room for medical care.

“Which, ironically, is more expensive,” Heinrich added.

Heinrich told the Bulletin the increases in insurance premiums due to the impending cuts will be "deeply impactful for New Mexicans." He also said he’s been in the Senate when Democrats are in power and when the Republicans are in control.

“We go through these cycles. But what I’ve never seen is that it’s been as wantonly destructive as what we seem to be going through right now,” he said.

Heinrich said one of the silver linings is that the destruction will create “an opportunity to not just rebuild."

“But we don’t have to rebuild the way things have always been done. We can learn new things. We can innovate and that’s an opportunity for leadership going forward,” he said.