Posted on 04/25/2004 10:30:31 AM PDT by DumpsterDiver
On a late Monday afternoon just past, more than a dozen people lined up for the inevitable food handlers' and caregivers' ritual of getting a health card from the Clark County Health District on Shadow Lane in Las Vegas.
"First time or renew?" questions each of the three women working the small windows on Wing 8. One by one, the mostly Hispanic crowd answers that question. Depending on their answer, they would either be sent on to the renewal line - further down the hall - or go on the next round of questioning.
"I'm hearing that I need some ID and I just got to town. I don't have ID yet," said a young Hispanic woman, who appeared to be in her early 20s.
She heard right. The days of walking up and simply filling out a half-page form, getting a shot and seeing that classic movie on botulism are gone. About three weeks ago, the Clark County Health District [CCHD] implemented more rigid guidelines for getting a health card. A valid picture ID and a Social Security card were required of people applying for health cards.
That policy - which has just recently been modified again into a less-stringent one - was initiated to counter a rash of recent identity thefts and fake social security number incidents, according to Jennifer Sizemore, the public information officer for the health district. It was modeled after a similar policy employed by the Nevada Department of Motors Vehicles, she adds.
"That was an informal policy put in place for a few weeks ... when the [ID and Social Security number] problem was brought to [CCHD] management's attention," she explains. "Then, when they saw the problem it was causing, they put a written policy in place."
That "problem" was mostly the reaction of the Hispanic community and restaurants, which reported many incidents of Hispanic workers being denied health cards because they often didn't have social security cards, according to Malena Burnett - a local paralegal who works closely with the Hispanic community.
"It was one of my clients, who manages a restaurant in town, who brought it to my attention," recalls Burnett, who runs Amigo Services in Las Vegas. "He said everybody was in a state of panic ... He himself had gone over to [the CCHD satellite office on] Cambridge Street and had a social security card, but they [CCHD staff] said his was fake. It was wrinkled up because he carried it in his pocket."
Burnett went on to explain that her client (who declined to be interviewed for this story) then went to the main health district office at 625 Shadow Lane, but saw signs posted on the wall informing health card applicants that a Social Security card and valid photo ID would be required before getting a health card.
Burnett showed a reporter one of the notices she got at the health district during a trip there two weeks before. Burnett herself was told that she must obtain a social security card before receiving a health card on that visit to the Shadow Lane office.
As of last Monday, April 19, there were no signs left of those notices at the Shadow Lane facility - and nobody seemed to be asking for social security cards, either.
The new policy, dated April 12 and implemented last week, requires either just a driver's license or state identification from a list of about 30 accepted states, or two other forms of ID - of which one must have a photo of the applicant. An original Social Security card is no longer required, but instead is optional as one of the two forms of ID.
Burnett says the new written policy was implemented after she complained about the Social Security card requirement to the Nevada Restaurant Association and the Latin Chamber of Commerce.
The Clark County Health District, meanwhile, maintains the previous, informal policy was strictly a measure to help prevent identity theft, safeguard the public from health threats and protect itself, according to Sizemore.
"All of a sudden, we started getting a rash of fake IDs and we put the measure in," she says. "Depending on the type of work they [applicants] are doing, some would have to get Hepatitis A shots and we have to keep records of it."
People were also showing up and listing Social Security numbers on their health card applications already used by someone else for a health card, and there were some undocumented incidences where some people might have taken shots for others, Sizemore adds.
Any adverse impact on the Hispanic community was unintentional, she says. "We didn't do it to obstruct anybody."
While the new written policy seems to have calmed the storm that was brewing a few weeks ago, Nevada Restaurant Association President and CEO Van Heffner is still taking a little bit of a wait-and-see approach to the newest health district rules.
"I'm always concerned about labor-related issues. Many restaurants contacted us and were concerned about it," he says of the health district's previous informal policy requiring a Social Security card. Heffner also noted that drivers licenses from certain states, under the new written policy, were not sufficient by themselves to get a health card. "It's interesting that states like Arizona, California, Texas and New Mexico aren't valid [as sufficient ID alone]." All those states have significant Mexican immigrant populations, Heffner added.
Malena Burnett contends that people who can't get health cards often end up working for cash under the table in restaurants anyway, thus posing a health risk to the public. Sizemore responds that the health district does inspections for that very reason.
"A person shouldn't be working as a food handler without a health card," the health district information officer says.
But, of course!
> But, of course!
Some will do that even if they do have health cards.
I have to admit that evading taxes is one way to get more money into one's own pockets.
I need to print up some flyers along the lines of:
That seems to be the accepted rule when it comes to illegal alien Mexicans. They don't have to obey our laws.
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