Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center
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| Founded | 1975 |
|---|---|
| Type | Healthcare provider |
| Focus | Migrant and seasonal farmworkers and others with barriers to receiving health care |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 45°31′15″N 122°58′36″W / 45.52083°N 122.97667°WCoordinates: 45°31′15″N 122°58′36″W / 45.52083°N 122.97667°W |
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Area served
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Washington County Yamhill County |
| Product | Health Care |
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Key people
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Gil Muñoz, CEO |
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Revenue
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$60 million (2017) |
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Employees
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550 (2017) |
| Website | www |
Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center is a non-profit organization that provides primary health care in Washington and Yamhill counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. Established in 1975, Virginia Garcia operates five medical clinics, five dental clinics, one women's clinic as well as six school-based health centers, and is based in Cornelius, Oregon. The organization was founded to provide medical care to migrant and farm workers and those with barriers to care. It was named after the daughter of migrant workers who died after failing to receive medical treatment for an infected cut on her foot. In 2016, Virginia Garcia had revenues of $60 million and served 45,000 patients.
In 1975, Virginia Garcia, the six-year-old daughter of migrant workers, died of blood poisoning from a cut on her foot while living in a migrant camp in Washington County, Oregon. The death was seen as preventable and blamed on the lack of available medical care and the cultural and language barriers facing the primarily Spanish-speaking migrant laborers. Due to the death, the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center was founded by a variety of people, including Jim Zaleski, with the support of St. Vincent Hospital (now Providence St. Vincent Medical Center) in Cornelius, Oregon. The clinic first opened on July 3, 1975, in a three-car garage in Cornelius. The center was originally a part of Centro Cultural, a Cornelius-based non-profit group focused on assisting the Hispanic population in Washington County.
The Fred G. Meyer Memorial Trust gave Virginia Garcia grants in 1983 and 1985 for prenatal programs. In 1988, the trust gave the center $220,000 as part of the trust’s Children at Risk program. Also in 1988, Jim Zaleski was honored by the Oregon Human Development Corporation with that organization’s Golden Aztec award for service towards minorities. Then based in Cornelius, the single-clinic provided service to 6,000 people in 1987 on a budget of $800,000. In 1994, the organization expanded with a new clinic in McMinnville.
By 1994 the annual budget had grown to $1.5 million and Mildred J. Lane was serving as the director. Due to the implementation of the Oregon Health Plan, the center was to face cuts of up to $250,000 annually, so local hospitals Tuality Community Hospital, St. Vincent Hospital and Medical Center, and Oregon Health Sciences University each donated equipment and employees to Virginia Garcia. Virginia Garcia added dental services to its offerings in April 1997 after opening two dental examination rooms. At that time they had also received about $500,000 in grants towards construction of a dental and vision services clinic to open in Cornelius. That 4,400-square-foot (410 m2) clinic was designed by architecture firm Van Lom/Edwards and Scott Architecture. The organization had grown to 47 employees in 1999.
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