The Refugee Health Alliance (RHA) has organized trips every Saturday since November 2018 when a caravan of approximately 7,000 migrants arrived in Tijuana. 20-40 volunteers split into clinical teams are deployed to sites across Tijuana to overcrowded shelters supporting the provision of medical care, typically seeing between 100-200 patients at 4-6 shelters each Saturday. Furthermore, we have established a clinic at an autonomous community space where asylum seekers also come to receive free meals, supplies, and basic medical care. This clinic is open 3-5 days a week and is typically staffed by 1-3 providers and 2-3 support staff. The clinic sees between 15-40 patients each day and has access to basic labs, radiography, and testing at no cost to patients. We also subsidize the hospitalization of critically ill migrants given that at this time there is little other support available to them. Since our inception in November 2018, we have completed approximately 6,000 patient consultations and we have become the largest charity healthcare provider to the migrants and the shelters in Tijuana, with the exception of the Mexican government.
