The Texas Diabetes Institute - recently cited by the New York Times in a groundbreaking expose of San Antonio's Latino amputation crisis - largely exists thanks to COPS/Metro. During the early 1990s, when the local Lutheran hospital filed for bankruptcy, COPS/Metro built the political will for the City of San Antonio to purchase the hospital.
[Excerpts]
People in the neighborhood “were afraid of losing (the) only health-care facility, and others were concerned about the negative economic impact,” Ermis said....
Community groups such as Communities Organized for Public Service, or COPS, and Metro Alliance worked with city and county leaders to purchase the property and build a new health care facility there. A study determined that “diabetes was the No. 1 health issue for that (area’s) population,” Ermis said.
....These are now in use as offices of the Texas Diabetes Institute, which opened May 9, 1999. Operated by the University Health System, the community health resource offers a range of treatment and education services.
....
Texas has one of the highest rates in the nation for people undergoing diabetes-related amputations, at about 52 per 100,000 hospital admissions. The problem in San Antonio is even worse than in the rest of Texas, especially for men, who are roughly three times more likely to lose a foot or leg to diabetes than women...
“It’s a huge issue in San Antonio and dare I say, it’s the diabetic foot capital of the world, in terms of complications,” said Michael Sobolevsky, a podiatry doctor at the Texas Diabetes Institute, the facility run by University Health in the heavily Latino neighborhoods of western San Antonio.
[Photo Credit: Conservation Society of San Antonio]
One-Time 'TB Cottages' Converted to Help Tackle Diabetes, San Antonio Express-News [pdf]
Diabetes is Fueling an Amputation Crisis in San Antonio, NY Times [pdf]