OPINION: When politics collide with health, at-risk communities pay the price

I have spent my career practicing medicine where scarcity is the rule and politics the constant shadow — refugee camps in South Sudan, HIV clinics in Los Angeles, mobile units on Native reservations and now school campuses in New Mexico. The lesson has been consistent across continents: When politics intrudes on public health, patients pay first and most. That truth resurfaced recently in Bernalillo County.

In August, county leaders abruptly terminated two programs operated by Wellness Equity Alliance: one bringing primary and behavioral health care to middle school students through the Health Yeah! initiative and another providing addiction treatment at the Metropolitan Detention Center. Together, they reached hundreds of children, families and incarcerated patients — many with no insurance, no transportation and no other access to care. The decision arrived without warning, transition or justification.

Weeks later, a draft audit appeared in local media, positioned as the rationale. Our team had never received the report, never been shown its findings and never been offered the basic opportunity to respond — a standard step in any ethical government partnership. The release to reporters, not to clinicians, spoke volumes. It was not transparency. It was politics.

Every clinician on our team is licensed, credentialed and documented in an electronic health record that complies with privacy laws. The auditors had full access to that system but misread the data, mistaking unfamiliar file structures for “missing records.” Rather than ask for clarification, they assumed absence. We were never informed of any findings, nor were we invited to discuss the issues or correct the record. Instead, an order arrived to halt care within five days.

The consequences were immediate and devastating. For medically fragile patients, including children relying on medication and students receiving therapy for trauma, that decision was catastrophic. The directive forced clinicians into an impossible choice: Violate their professional oath or defy the government. Either path risked harm.

Medical ethics are explicit on this point. Physicians must provide continuity of care and at least 30 days’ notice (best practice is 90 days) before ending services. The county’s action made compliance impossible. Forced abandonment of patients is not just poor practice; it is a moral failure.

What makes this even sadder is that in the months prior, the school-based team had increased the number of patients being seen by more than 400%. Children who had waited months for behavioral health support were finally being seen within weeks. Families were re-engaging with a system that had long failed them. Progress was tangible. And then it vanished.

Oversight is essential in public health, but accountability without fairness is punishment. True partnership depends on transparency and dialogue. Neither occurred here. We first learned of the draft audit through a media inquiry, not through official communication. To this day, Bernalillo County has never released the full document nor allowed us to respond. Yet it has been cited publicly as fact. When government bypasses procedures and uses unverified findings to justify dismantling care, we have to question whether the motives are political rather than ethical.

New Mexico has long prided itself on community-based health care, built on compassion and equity. That legacy demands that leaders place patient safety above administrative optics. Terminating essential programs without cause or transition is not governance — it is neglect.

Wellness Equity Alliance remains committed to the communities we serve. Our clinicians and systems meet and often exceed state credentialing and compliance standards. But beyond that, our mission is human. It’s the child who needs an inhaler, the parent who trusts a familiar therapist, the sister who can’t play sports because her shoes have holes and hurt her feet. This is what equity in action looks like. When governments lose sight of that, the cost is not measured in budgets or audits. It is measured in lives, and that is truly heartbreaking.