A recent article in Rolling Stone magazine questions John McCain’s character, policy stances, and personal history less than 30 days before the election. The controversial article which delves deeply into McCain’s history as a POW has convinced many undecided voters to switch to Obama while it has prompted other commentators to decry the magazine’s lack of deference to McCain’s sacrifice to his country. You decide: McCain

– Jillian McLaughlin

16-year-old Carlos Martinez sits in
a bright green examination chair in the Topahkal Family Practice Office (1608
Isleta SW) with a massive four-inch gash in his right index finger. There is a pool of blood beneath his
hand as if someone had spilled Hawaiin Punch over a bed of gauze. A native of Juarez, Mexico, Carlos was
visiting family in Albuqeuque, when he sliced his finger on a refrigerator that
slipped as he was helping an uncle lift it out of his pickup truck. The wound required immediate medical
care, as one could peel back the skin as if husking an ear of corn.

Usually
under these circumstances, Carlos would have to be rushed to an emergency room
at the nearest HMO-financed hospital, his bill running upwards of $1500—exactly
what happened to a friend of his who had a less serious injury.

“He
probably has a Visa to come for a few days, but he doesn’t have any health care
insurance,” said Dr. Andru Ziwasimon, the head practicioner at the Family
Health Clinic, a part of Kalpulli Izkalli’s Topahkal Health Collaborative.

Thus,
when wounded, Carlos was brought to Topahkal to see the soft-spoken Dr.
Ziwasimon, who, wearing scrubs for a shirt, Carhart kakis for pants and Teva
flip-flops for shoes looks more like a guitarist than a doctor, and sounds
exactly like Ira Glass, the host for NPR’s “This American Life.”

“There’s
a certain sickness in our medical system that’s pretty evident. It doesn’t take much intelligence to
see that. Health Care bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US—that
seems whacked to me, just wrong. I want to minimize my participation with the
bad parts of medicine,” said Ziwasimon.

So
in July 2004 he decided to join the Topahkal Casa de Nuestra Medicina (House of
our Medicine) Collaborative. He
spearheaded the second of three aspects of the collaborative, which started out
in 1996 as Kalpulli Izkalli’s Promotoras Tradicionales Project, a
donation-based indigenous traditional medicine clinic. Kalpulli Izkalli (Community House of
Light) is a local grassroots non-profit dedicated to the advocacy and improving
of the community’s health condition with an emphasis on traditional healing.

With the addition of the Family Practice
to the Collaborative came the inclusion of modern mainstream medicine, open to
the public as a walk-in health care resource. There also is a weekly Ultrasound clinic that is offered for
the reasonable flat rate of $120. But this practice was going to be different.

“The
ER is $300 minimum to just be seen. It’s actually $80 to not be seen. If you walk into the ER, wait, and leave, you’ll get a bill of $80. Come here and get health care three
times for that amount of money. We
don’t want to replicate those mechanisms that harm people,” said Ziwasimon.

They
exist as a resource for the uninsured. The traditional medicine clinic is donation-based, and the Family Health
Clinic charges a flat-rate of $25/visit, plus materials expenses, usually no
more than another $10-$20. This is
accomplished even after a December 2006 move into their current facility that
caused their monthly rent to jump from $500 to $2200.

“But
we’ve kept our prices the same, and we’re very proud of that,” said Ziwasimon,
who tends to Carlos’ finger with assistant Catherine Jones, a Tulane medical
student doing a clinical rotation at Topahkal as part of her fourth year of
medical school.

They
joke with Carlos in Spanish, who masochistically laughs as the doctor instructs
his understudy in the proper techniques of sewing up human flesh. They all laugh when someone suggests
that Carlos should change his name to Pedro, so he could be like the famed Mets
ace Pedro Martinez, an unlikely proposition considering Carlos’ pitching hand
was recently obliterated.

The
Health Collaborative relies on volunteers and arrangements with universities in
order to cut costs and keep their overhead reasonably low. Work-Study programs with UNM and CNM
pre-health students give aspiring doctors and nurses a first-hand look at what
it is like to combine modern and traditional medicine through a holistic
approach. The idea of Topahkal,
however, attracts volunteers and students from all over the medical field.

“Andru’s
an inspiring model. It’s
definitely the kind of place that I want to wind up in after medical
school. It’s a perfect learning
opportunity for someone who is interested in doing community health work,” said
Jones, who will graduate in May.

While
the fees at Topahkal save their patients somewhere between 90 and 95% on their
health bills, if someone who can’t afford that last 5 or 10% is need of care,
they are still welcome in the clinic with open arms.

yle=”line-height:150%”> “There’ll
be a woman in some sort of a domestic violence situation who’ll come in, and
she’ll be so clearly poor that out of the kindness of our hearts we just say
‘m’am, please, this is on us,’ ” said Ziwasimon. “No one is turned away.”

Each
patient is given a payment plan at the end of their visit to assist with the
expenses. Carlos, who is no longer
laughing about being stabbed repeatedly with a needle and is arguing over the
tenth and final stich in his near-repaired finger, will see a bill for $55,
which subsidizes the local anistesia and stiching used in his procedure.

While
payment for the treatment received in the Family Practice is not optional, if
someone refuses to pay on the payment plan, they are not pursued. Honesty and fairness is the name of the
game, and even though the common cheapskate can manipulate the system, 97% of
the treatments given by the clinic are paid in full.

“Most
people that we serve are in the South Valley, and are low-income. But we have
people who come from all over the city—even people with insurance come here
just because they like it,” said Sylvia Ledesma, a healer at Topahkal, and
founder and director of Kalpulli Izkalli and the Promotoras Tradicionales
Project.

After
a slow first year, the Colaborative has been operating at capacity ever since.
Open six days a week, fifty weeks a year, they tend on average to twenty
patients a day and around 7,000 patients each year, all who receive main-stream
hospital quality care with a personal touch at an extremely fair price.

“Part
of this place is a financial experiment. We’re experimenting with the price you need to charge to actually be
sustainable and healthy, instead of profiteering. We’re finding the price—the minimum price—that we need to
charge because we have to take care of ourselves too,” said Ziwasimon.

Catherine,
now alone with Carlos to finish sewing up his finger while Dr. Ziwasimon steps
out of the room to attend to another patient. She has somehow managed to convince the defiant Carlos to
allow her to insert the final (and deemed necessary) stich.

“You
just never know what you’re gonna get in these donated packets,” she said, tearing
open a plastic bag and pulling out a smaller needle than hoped for. A viscous drop of blood hangs from
Carlos’ finger like droplets off the tip of a melting Jello icecycle.

It
is not common at Topahkal to sacrifice financial stability in order to ensure
that patients continue to recieve quality care at a extremely low price when
compared to other clinics and hospitals. This fiscal year alone has left Topahkal some $10,000 in debt due to
unforeseen expenses.

“But
there’s no way that we’re going to let anyone stop us from doing what we love
to do, so if we had to, we would eat that cost,” said Ziwasimon.

As
He and Jones exit the examination room, Carlos gives a sigh of relief. His finger is all sewed up—ten stiches
in all—and he is ready to head back home. Topahkal will arrange with a clinic in Mexico to remove the stiches in a
few days once the wound is sufficiently healed. After washing all of the blood from his arm, and wrapping
his finger in a utility band-aid, he hops down from the green chair and is
instructed on the proper forms needed to be filled out before he leaves.

Now
3:30 in the afternoon, the waiting room is overflowing with people seeking
medical treatment. Although the
clinic closes at 7:00 p.m., Ziwasimon and his colleagues will be here until
9:30 or later tending to patients. Those who cannot be accommodated will have to come back tomorrow.

One
can be sure, however, that this is where they will return, time and time
again. For these people whose lack
of medical insurance does not permit them to seek aide at any local hospital,
Topahkal is the only option when they are in need. Like Carlos, going to the emergency room is not a financial
option—and even if it were, why would someone want to go anywhere other than
Topahkal?