Double Duty at Casa

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by Melinda Tuhus | Jul 30, 2006 11:34 am

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Posted to: Health Care

One recent Tuesday saw a confluence of hospital outreach programs unfold for the mostly Latino residents of Casa OtoÃ±al, a senior housing complex on Sylvan Avenue in the Hill. Outside the building was the Yale New Haven Hospital Mammogram Van, making its yearly visit to provide breast cancer screenings for many of Casa’s female residents, including Ramonita Santos (pictured). Inside the building Project Elder Care, sponsored by the Hospital of St. Raphael, was providing primary geriatric care. A reporter detected a little bit of friendly competition.

p(clear). Santos has been living at Casa OtoÃ±al for the past three years, where she also works as a cook. She says she gets a mammogram every year (despite a general recommendation that women over 50 get one every other year). She’s never had a problem, “gracias a Dios,” she says, though a sister has been treated for breast cancer.

Millie Torres, the case manager for Casa, assisted the staff of the van by translating for many of the older women patients who don’t speak English. She kept a list of appointments scheduled every 20 minutes, and women stepped in and out of the van on slightly bouncy metal steps, holding on to the railing. One was Arcelia Diaz Roman (at left, with Torres on the right in photo above), who moved into Casa in January. She hails from Lares, Puerto Rico, a town in the mountainous interior of the island, renowned, through el Grito de Lares (the Cry of Lares) as the Lexington and Concord of the Puerto Rican struggle for independence from Spain.

p(clear). Meanwhile, in a small examination room adjacent to a small waiting room, Brian Fillmore, a physician’s assistant based at St. Raphe’s, was beginning his regular Tuesday morning primary care visits. “We come every week; they come once a year,” he said, chuckling, referring to the Yale mammogram van.

“We manage their diabetes, their asthma, the hypertension, their depression,” said Fillmore. “This is primary care, so we do it all.”

p(clear). Josefa Machicote (with Dr. Fillmore) was the first to be seen. Several women filled the chairs in the waiting room. (Women outnumber men at Casa, but not by nearly as much as at many other senior living centers.) Rosalina Santiago (at left) was there to have her diabetes checked; Ana Castillo (at right, with Rosa Perez) was being tested for anemia.

p(clear). Registered nurse Lucy Malfitani does home nursing care for many of Casa’s residents. On Tuesday mornings she volunteers at Project Elder Care. “It’s my way of giving back,” she says.

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