Theresa Cheng (’21), Clinical Instructor of Emergency Medicine and Director of Social Equity at UCSF Acute Care Innovation Center, contributed an opinion to The San Diego Tribune describing inhumane conditions she’s observed as a board volunteer with Border Kindness and the lack of emergency medical access impacting migrants in Jacumba, California (“I’m an Emergency Medicine Doctor Volunteering in Jacumba. 911 Calls Are Being Ignored. People Need Help Now.” Dec. 15). “Without a concerted, coordinated and immediate response and an immigration-focused disaster relief plan from San Diego County and its emergency medical service system, and the federal government, more people are likely to die soon. The emergency medical system is breaking down. It would just take a rainstorm when temperatures are below freezing to have a mass hypothermia event. The immigration crisis in California is a mass casualty event waiting to happen.”
