Portuguese Fair Connects Brazilians to Health Screenings

Genésio Jacinto Cassimiro (right) talks to a worker at the Família, Amigos e Saúde health fair in Allston, Mass. (photo: E. A. de Oliveira, EthnicNEWz.org)

Genésio Jacinto Cassimiro did not know he was at high risk for developing diabetes. Marcelo de Castro was relieved he was not.

Both swung by the Família, Amigos e Saúde (Family, Friends and Health) health fair, which catered to Portuguese-speaking communities and was held at the St. Anthony School in Allston (an area of Boston), Mass., on Sunday, November 23, 2008. 

The Brazilian Journal Magazine organized the fair with much support from St. Anthony Catholic Church.  About 500 people visited the 40 health providers at the fair, according to the event organizers.

For Genésio Jacinto Cassimiro, a quick blood test showed that his glucose (blood sugar) level was 410 mmol/l, much higher than the normal range of 80 to 120 mmol/l.

“I know I need to change habits. Sweets are gone,” said Cassimiro who, as a Brazilian, has twice the likelihood of contracting diabetes (which involves abnormal amounts of blood glucose) than a white American. In his case, there was another factor affecting his diabetes risk. His father spent his last days battling kidney failure resulting from untreated diabetes.

At a table nearby, Alfred Smith, a community outreach officer for Boston Medical Center (BMC), approached 40 men, ages 40 to 50, to talk about prostate cancer, which is more prevalent in African Americans than in whites.

His team conducted one of two tests designed to detect prostate cancer: a blood test that verifies the level of prostate specific antigen (PSA), which shows the quantity of antibodies that an individual has already produced in his blood to fight prostate cancer. BMC will release the results of the PSA blood test in 7 to 10 days.

Patients with a positive reading will be called by BMC even if the individual has no health insurance.Smith’s task at the health fair proved to be not that simple.

“Events like this one are very important because the average male would not go to the doctor like women go,” he said. “For every five men we’ve seen here, only two will visit the doctor.”

For Eduardo Henrique Ribeiro, a primary care physician based in Framingham, Mass., the Brazilian community needs to organize more health fairs, following the example of Hispanic communities that last summer wooed about 10,000 people to downtown Boston for their Musica y Salud (Music and Health) health fair.

Elizabeth Daher, an eye physician and surgeon who was unfamiliar with the Brazilian community, said she was at the health fair to talk about an eye condition that has been targeting immigrants who work outdoors.

“The pterygium is a fleshy growth that covers the cornea [and] can lead to blindness. It has been detected in people who work in…dry ambient [places], exposed to sun rays, but it [also has] a big genetic component,” said Dr. Daher.Surgery is simple, she says.

But post-surgical treatment is as important as the surgery itself, because the illness has a high rate of reoccurrence. About 15 percent of surgeries to eliminate pterygium are conducted in immigrant workers.

At another table, Maria Almeida offered rehabilitation programs for people who have suffered work-related accidents, as well as speech therapy and services related to orthopedics, stroke, occupational therapy, and neurology.

Almeida’s employer, the Spaulding Rehabilitation Network, has a rehab program at its health center in Medford, Mass., where workers get two-hour physical therapy covered by worker’s compensation insurance.

“We take a lot immigrants referred by the Massachusetts General Hospital, including the uninsured,” said Almeida.

At the end of the fair, Genésio Jacinto Cassimiro, an insured American citizen, confessed that some dieting changes must be made.

“I know I can no longer afford to eat feijoada at 3 in the morning, like I did last night,” he said, referring to a high-calorie Brazilian dish that has pork chops.

source:  EthnicNEWz.org

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