Closing Utah health clinics endangers Pacific Islanders — including stranded American Samoans

EDITOR’S NOTE — [Samoa News has reprinted the following story from RNZ Pacific, as many of the group of Tagata Tu Faatasi Alliance of American Samoa, that have written letters to Gov. Lolo M. Moliga asking that a Hawaiian Air repatriation flight be arranged for American Samoan residents to return home, are stuck in Utah. Lolo’s most recent letter to Hawaiian Air requests that flights now be suspended through Sept. 30th.

The governor notes, “We are certainly not oblivious to our residents’ earnest pleas and yearning to return home, but from our perspective, they are in a better place to seek medical assistance and sophisticated healthcare if the inevitable were to happen to anyone of them.” ra]

A public health specialist in the US state of Utah says this month's closure of health clinics could badly affect Pacific Island victims of Covid-19.

Jacob Fitisemanu has been managing the Health Clinics of Utah, which are being shut down by the government as its finances are battered by the virus.

He said the clinics were for the under-served, those without health insurance or who faced other barriers.

Pacific Islanders were contracting Covid-19 at four times the overall rate in Utah and Mr Fitisemanu said cutting clinic access in the midst of a pandemic was not a good decision.

It would mean 13,000 active patients would have to find a new medical home, he said.

"That's very difficult, especially for Pacific Island folks and anyone who is reluctant to seek care in the first place, to find a place where you feel welcome, to have a great rapport and relationship with your health care provider and have a medical regimen that works for you."

Fitisemanu said the Pacific Island community was the segment of Utah society worst affected by Covid-19.

Nearly 2000 Pacific Islanders in Utah have been infected from a population of less than 46,000.

There were particularly high hospitalization rates of Pacific Islanders, especially in Salt Lake County, where the biggest Pasifika population lives, he said.