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Local bilingual practitioner urges Tahoe Forest board to lead outreach on care for undocumented patients
Summary
During public comment, Johanna Koch asked the board to support a public awareness campaign explaining how the hospital will respond to undocumented people who seek care and how the hospital would handle any immigration enforcement contact.
During the meeting’s public-comment period, Johanna Koch identified herself as a bilingual practitioner and asked the board to consider supporting a public-awareness campaign explaining how the hospital will respond to undocumented people seeking care.
“This is Johanna Koch speaking. And, I am, here to ask that the board consider supporting or even driving, a public awareness campaign, if you will, about how the hospital will respond to, undocumented people who seek care in our hospital district,” Koch said. “Because as a bilingual practitioner, I'm already seeing patients who've told me they won't be coming back to my clinic because they're afraid. And I want our communities to know where we stand and what is legal, what is the law, and how we're going to follow the law, how we would respond if ICE showed up at our door.”
Chair McGarry acknowledged the suggestion and asked staff to take the comment back for consideration; no formal board action was taken on the request during the meeting.
The comment was recorded as public input to the board; staff and board members discussed routing the suggestion to the appropriate operational teams for follow up.
