dr. ivan melendez

EDINBURG, TEXAS - Dr. Ivan Melendez, Hidalgo County’s local health authority, has given his wrap-up on 2020, a year like no other for his profession.

At times during the year, Hidalgo County led the nation in deaths and hospitalization rates caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, at one point, Melendez, a frontline healthcare hero, himself tested positive for COVID-19.

While things appear to have settled down, Melendez said Rio Grande Valley residents cannot let their guard down during the holiday season. He urged everyone to continue to practice good personal hygiene, keep wearing face masks in public, to practice social distancing, and not gather in large crowds.

“Our community was Ill-prepared. The world was ill-prepared (for COVID-19),” Melendez said, in his 2020 year in review.

“The virus is like the marathon and you don’t train for the marathon the weekend before. When you are a boxer you don’t go to your wife and say, hey, babe, have seen my shorts I have a world championship fight next week. It doesn’t work that way. You have to be training, you have to be ready.”

In an exclusive podcast with the Rio Grande Guardian, Melendez rattled off a number of grim milestones, noting that the pandemic was at its worst in Hidalgo County in July 2020.

“Where did we fail? Our population was very sick. Our baseline state of health… despite being the No. 1 in diabetes, hyper-tension, morbid obesity, lack of access to healthcare, 20 percent un- or under-insured, a porous border to a third world country that is just chaotic, 29 being the average age in our community, it was the perfect storm. Despite that we were the worst among the worse.”

Melendez said he cannot accept praise for a job well done. 

“When people come to me and say, you guys have done a great job, well, I don’t think so. I think we have made a great effort but you measure a job by outcome. You don’t say, oh my God, you have really tried hard to paint that house. No, you say the house looks good. We had the highest mortality rate.”

So, did the efforts of healthcare professionals on the frontline in the battle against the coronavirus match the results? Melendez said, no. 

“Our efforts were gargantuan, but our results, you cannot argue… our results were not good,” he said.

“And so, our lesson learned, from my perspective, is we need to have our community in a better state of health.”

Editor's Note:  Go to the Rio Grande Guardian website to read the full story. 

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EDINBURG, Texas - Hidalgo County’s health authority says he is speaking in a personal capacity when he calls for the prioritization of primary care clinics over more profitable lines of service in the health industry.

Dr. Ivan Melendez appeared on a webinar about COVID-19 hosted by Futuro RGV. Asked by moderator Felipe Salinas how the Rio Grande Valley can be better prepared for the next pandemic, Melendez said:

“This is my own personal observation, perhaps a little politically incorrect. You can tell I am not running for anything. I think that it is human nature to put the resources into those lines of service that are profitable. So, a heart transplant, a liver transplant, a kidney transplant, patient hospital stay, hospice, all these are profitable lines of service.”

Melendez said he is not immune from criticism for putting more profitable healthcare work ahead of providing help where it is most needed.

“I mean, I can’t remember the last time that I volunteered my services at a nonprofit primary care center. I am not going to throw a stone and not take some responsibility too. But, we’ve designed these lines of services that I believe have been prioritized by which is more profitable versus not.”

Melendez continued: “So, it is not infrequent when someone says, well, do we do a rehab or do we not and then look at the numbers. So, we need to shy away from that and say, we need to establish primary care resources.

In his answer to Salinas’ question, Melendez then brought up the difficult task primary care supporters have had in getting a healthcare district established in Hidalgo County. 

“When we try to get a hospital district going it is always beat up. People just vote it down because, I am paying South Texas Community College, I’m paying the school, the municipality, county. People say, I’m not going to pay more taxes. Then the misperception, I think it is a misperception.. that, and if I do (vote for a healthcare district) and we get this money it is just going to go to the hospitals. And they are already the $1.5 billion people in town. Why should I vote to enrich them?” Melendez said.

“So, we need to find ways where we can ascertain that our tax dollars are not redirected to other parts of the country for those people to distribute to their investors. But they are placed here so we can staff primary care clinics.”

Melendez said he is hopeful that support for primary care clinics has increased during the coronavirus crisis. “One of the advantages of this pandemic is that it has created an awareness from our elected officials that we need to prioritize a little bit differently,” he said. 

To read the new stories and watch the news videos of the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service go to www.riograndeguardian.com.

EDINBURG, TEXAS - Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez and Hidalgo County Health Authority Dr. Ivan Melendez recently appeared on a Facebook LIVE to discuss COVID-19 issues.

Cortez spoke about a recent surge in coronavirus cases in his county and new curfews he was putting in place in response. 

Melendez participated in a Q&A with Hidalgo County’s public affairs director, Carlos Sanchez, with a focus on the impact the COVID-19 is having on area hospitals. 

Melendez, who does all of his clinical work in local hospitals, was asked about an increase in the number of tests coming back as positive for the coronavirus in Hidalgo County.

In Hidalgo County that rate is currently six percent and rising. This, he said, is cause for alarm.

“What worries me, at six percent is the rapidity, the quickness at which those numbers have increased. I do all of my clinical work in the hospitals. I am seeing the controlled chaos. I am seeing the impact that this accelerated rate is causing in the hospitals. I am seeing the staffing issues,” Melendez said.

Melendez cited the situation at one local hospital, which he did not mention by name.

“There are 50-plus COVID patients in-house. Twenty-three of them require hemodialysis. That hemodialysis on people with COVID, they have to be done at bedside. Well, of course, we also have a lot of people in our part of the country that go to the emergency departments to get emergency dialysis. Because that is their only source. They are not able to have a routine dialysis at a dialysis center.

“So, imagine if you are having 23 bedside dialysis and you still have to take care of another 40 or 50 people a week that need to have dialysis in the emergency department. That is an example that I would like the public to know how (about, how) even a doubling in our percent rate begins to tax significantly the resources that are available.”

Melendez said that, as of now, the resources at local hospitals are not being taxed to the point of saturation. 

“Now if we were doubling, if we are at six percent today and we were 12 percent in two weeks and we were at 24 percent in another two weeks, that would be a catastrophic event for us.”

Melendez said there are plans to deal with such an eventuality.

To read the new stories and watch the news videos of the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service go to www.riograndeguardian.com.