Dr Siu Helps Serve Healthcare Needs of Local Farmworkers

For the past four years, Family Medicine Physician Cindy Siu, MD, of Bayhealth Primary Care, Airport Road has been involved with Westside Family Healthcare’s Mobile Health Unit. The organization is a Federally Qualified Health Center in Delaware that aims to provide equal access to quality healthcare, regardless of ability to pay. They have a large RV that brings medical services to migrant and seasonal agricultural workers in Kent and western Sussex counties.

“Throughout my residency, I worked with the Mobile Health Unit, which removes the barriers to care faced by those who provide labor to many of our local farms, and their family members. I wanted to continue on after joining Bayhealth,” said Dr. Siu. She’s now the physician in the Unit one evening per week, working with several nurses and medical assistants to help agricultural workers and their families get the care they need.

During the growing season, the Unit travels to the farm labor camps and areas where these workers reside. Dr. Siu might examine 15 or more patients in an evening, offering basic primary care—everything from preventive medicine, such as vaccines or cancer screenings, to treatments for illness or chronic conditions. There’s an emphasis on screening for infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, which tend to be higher among this patient population. They also treat a lot of musculoskeletal conditions that can result from the grueling manual labor done by farmworkers, and arrange for diagnostic testing or referrals for patients that need them.   

“Early on in my medical training I did a lot with global health, but I’ve also realized the needs that exist locally,” said Dr. Siu. “I’m passionate about working with the Mobile Health Unit because we’re giving access to important medical services to people that would not otherwise be able to get it, and strengthening the overall health of our community."

Visit Dr. Siu's profile to learn more about her and to watch her bio video.