The Story of
Virginia Garcia
In 1975, beautiful six-year old Virginia Garcia and her farmworker parents traveled from their home in Mission, Texas to California and Oregon to work in the fields. Along the way Virginia cut her foot, and by the time they reached Oregon, it had become infected. Due to economic, language and cultural barriers to health care, Virginia died from what should have been an easily treatable wound.
Moved to action by Virginia’s unnecessary death, the community quickly rallied together to open the first Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center in a three-car garage, determined to prevent similar tragedies from occurring.
Today, Virginia Garcia provides healthcare services to 52,000 patients a year in Washington and Yamhill counties at five primary care clinics and pharmacies, six dental clinics, a Women’s Clinic, and five school-based health centers. We also provide outreach to schools, community health fairs and to migrant and seasonal farmworkers at local camps and commercial nurseries through our mobile clinic.
Who We Are
Virginia Garcia is a catalyst for change in health care. We believe health care is a right, not a privilege reserved only for the healthy and the wealthy.
Our mission, vision and values follow that belief and form the work we do every day.
Mission
Virginia Garcia is a catalyst for change in health care delivery.
The Mission of the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center is to provide high quality, comprehensive, and culturally appropriate primary health care to the communities of Washington and Yamhill counties with a special emphasis on migrant and seasonal farmworkers and others with barriers to receiving health care.
Vision
Our vision is simple. We work to ensure that all people in our service area have access to timely, high-quality health services, enabling them to achieve the best possible health outcome.
Values
In service to VGMHC as employees, volunteers, donors, or other supporting constituents, we are guided in all that we do by a set of shared values:
Patient-centered
We base all of our actions and decisions, fundamentally, in our quest to provide care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs and values, and to ensure that patient values guide all clinical decisions.
Collaboration
We value strategic partnerships as an approach to improving the health of our community.
Health and wellness
We believe in nurturing health and wellness among our patients, employees and the community. We focus on health promotion and prevention of disease.
Diversity
We believe in acknowledging and honoring people’s differences by drawing on the cultures, talents and ideas of a broader group of people. We seek to harness the strengths of our individuality for the common good. Our diversity allows the exploration of ways we are alike while also respecting our differences in a safe, positive and nurturing environment.
Quality
We commit to excellence in all our work. Foremost, we believe in applying high-quality, evidence-based care to all our patients.
Progressive
We believe in innovation, growth and positive change in all we do.
Social justice
We strive to eliminate health disparities by providing high-quality care regardless of a person’s socio-economic status while advocating for health policy consistent with our mission.
Fun and thriving workplace
We commit to a workplace that emphasizes joy in our work, growing and developing employees, a passion for learning, creative problem solving, a celebration of individual’s uniqueness, and the spirit of teamwork in all we do.
Customer service
We value the service we provide to our patients, community partners, and each other. We maintain the integrity and self-esteem of each person we serve by listening to understand, responding to their needs in a timely manner, following through on our commitments, and seeking feedback for continuous improvement.
Stewardship
We believe in the efficient, effective, and ethical use of all our resources, and we hold ourselves accountable to report on our actions to our patients, employees, funders, volunteers, and other partners.
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