The Community's Health

By Aaron Martinez

Tucked in the heart of Armijo neighborhood in Albuquerque's South Valley, the Topahkal Health Collaborative is providing innovative healthcare services in some very unique ways.

“It's not just a normal, sterile clinic,” said Rose Chavez, a UNM Service Corps member who is volunteering with Topahkal, as she stood outside of the family practice office and watered tomato plants and corn stalks. “This is a place where Western technology and traditional medicine meet. It's very cutting edge.”

Based out of two separate adobe-colored houses surrounded by gardens, the Topahkal Health Collaborative operates through a family practice office and a traditional medicine clinic. While the traditional medicine clinic is donation-based, the services within the family practice office are offered at reasonable rates without an insurance provider.

“Here the medically underserved and uninsured can come for health services that honor their cultural practices,” said Chavez, who is also a UNM senior studying nutrition and pre-med. Chavez said that she was drawn to work at Topahkal because she understands what it feels like to not have regular, quality healthcare service.

“Now, I have the ability to recognize the injustice and be a part of the solution,” she said. “I see this as a big part of my future.”

In addition to UNM Service Corps volunteers like Chavez, the Topahkal Health Collaborative relies on the services of traditional healers and those of physicians alike.

By combining their talents, the healers at Topahkal can ensure every aspect of a patient's health is considered.

“In some cases, a patient simply needs a traditional placita, in which flower essences and herbs are combined with a counseling session,” said Lorraine Cordova Carriaga, who has a master's degree as a family nurse practitioner from UNM and is also a traditional healer. “We can also do spiritual cleansings, which are called limpias, using the herbs growing in the garden.”

In other cases, technological therapies and diagnostic tools are more relevant. For example, physicians like Andru Ziwasimon can perform ultrasounds to examine patients, or use stitches to close a large wound.

“Equipment like the ultrasound machine is brought in based on patient needs,” Ziwasimon said. “Essentially, the community determines what equipment we have.”

Although the two clinics are in separate buildings, within feet of each other, Ziwasimon said that within a year, the Topahkal Health Collaborative will be moved to a new facility where both clinics are combined.

Another UNM student and Service Corps member, Otoño Silvia, said he is interested in volunteering with the Topahkal Health Collaborative because it connects him to the community.

“Everyone working here is interested in community service and practicing ecologically-sustainable medicine,” said Silvia. “There's a very positive atmosphere here.”

Silvia will graduate as a therapeutic specialist, and said that he wants his talents to be of service to people.

“I want to share my knowledge and skills and integrate all aspects of healing,” Silvia said.

“We're trying to give people back their community in the form of controlling their own healthcare,” Carriaga said. “We welcome all sexual orientations, all races and all conditions, it's about community healing here.”