The state’s health care system is ill-equipped to treat an increasing number of migrants, medical professionals say
Some hospitals in Southern California are struggling with an influx of illegal immigrants amid the border crisis, while American patients are enduring longer wait times for doctor appointments due to a nursing shortage in the state, according to two health care professionals.
A health care worker at a hospital in Southern California, who asked not to be named for fear of losing her job, told The Epoch Times that “the entire health care system is just being bombarded” by a steady stream of illegal migrants in recent years.
Some migrants get hurt crossing the desert or injured climbing the border wall, while others are injured in accidents, especially when too many occupants are packed into one vehicle, said the health care worker.
Severely injured illegal migrants are often rescued by helicopter and flown to trauma centers in Southern California, she said.
“They’re falling off the wall,” she said. “They’re always flown. They’re never put in the back of an ambulance.”
With a typical helicopter rescue costing around $30,000, without factoring in the costs of medication and medical staff at the hospitals, “who pays for that?” she asked.
“Our health care system is so overwhelmed, and then add on top of that tuberculosis, COVID-19, and other diseases from all over the world,” she said.
Total U.S. apprehensions of illegal and inadmissible aliens in fiscal year 2023—from Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 30, 2023—were 3.2 million. In fiscal year 2022, it was more than 2.7 million. Counting “known gotaways”—those who Border Patrol agents record but don’t catch—more than 8 million illegal immigrants have entered the country in less than three years under the Biden administration.
Language Barrier
Illegal migrant patients are usually accompanied by their sponsors who advocate for them, but language barriers still pose a problem for doctors and other hospital staff, said the health care worker.
“Not everybody can speak the languages of these patients,” she said. “That’s another burden.”
