[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 84 (Tuesday, June 10, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1192]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 ACKNOWLEDGING THE WORK OF JOSE GARCIA

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                          HON. SILVESTRE REYES

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 10, 2003

  Mr. REYES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge the work of Jose 
Garcia, the founder and director of Project CARE in El Paso, TX. Mr. 
Garcia recently received national recognition from the Robert Wood 
Johnson Foundation's Community Health Leadership Program. The 
prestigious award includes a $120,000 grant to provide additional 
funding to further his work.
  Mr. Garcia, a pharmacist, helped found Project CARE, a treatment and 
education program for asthma and diabetes patients, in 2001. Project 
CARE uses pharmacists as ``promotores'' to manage uncomplicated 
diabetes and asthma, reducing costs by targeting the uninsured and 
frequent users of the hospital's emergency department. It also helps 
fill the gap in the physician shortage along the Texas-Mexico border, 
where more than a third of El Paso residents are uninsured and nearly 
40 percent of families live below the poverty line.
  Mr. Garcia helped to launch Project CARE after he observed, through 
his work as a pharmacist at R.E. Thomas Hospital, that access to care, 
medication, and education was the solution to longterm preventable 
illness. He also realized that the patients who used the most hospital 
resources were those who could not afford their prescription co-
payments under the county's indigent care program. Mr. Garcia then 
began covering patient's co-payments out of his own paycheck before 
founding Project CARE.
  Mr. Garcia also established El Circulo de Hombres, a collaborative 
drug treatment model approved by the Texas State Board of Pharmacy that 
features ``platicas,'' discussions in which Latino men talk openly 
about health issues and take control of their own care.
  The gentleman who nominated Mr. Garcia for the Community Health 
Leadership award put it best when he said, ``Jose has a vision to 
improve access to health care alternatives to the marginalized and 
disenfranchised of our community. He has successfully developed a 
cultural, linguistic, and social home for the poor and uninsured.''
  Mr. Speaker, Jose Garcia has demonstrated tremendous leadership in 
meeting the urgent health needs of many in the El Paso community. I 
urge my colleagues to join me in congratulating him on this well-
deserved award.

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