GRADING BROWNSVILLE'S COVID-19 TESTING RESPONSE: "F"

Valley Med got out just in time. During the last week of July, the cumulative positive cases in the city jumped through the roof and climbed toward 10,000 according to the city's coronavirus website.

The other two contractors were hired on when the complaints about the lengthy waiting time between testing and getting the results started to crescendo in commissioners' ears and Valley Med Urgent Care poster boy PA Eder Hernandez wailed in his Facebook posts that the work load was killing him and his staff but with the grace of God, they were willing sacrificial lambs to slay the conquering COVID-19 virus.

By Juan Montoya

All of a sudden, it seems like you can't give away enough free COVID-19 testing in Brownsville.

What before required one to sit in a car for hours before getting the blessing of a health worker to take the test is now being offered to anyone shows up at the site. Even if you are not showing obvious outwards symptoms of virus infection, the effort is now to determine whether the virus is in you and if you could possibly spread it without getting sick.



And you won't have to pay a clinic if you want one because now it's free all over. All you have to have is ID. It won't be left to a health worker to determine whether you get one or not.

And now, instead of having one at a distant site like the Brownsville Sports Park – where Brownsville Metro has never had a route and has not provided transportation there yet even in this pandemic – the new outfits like Dignity LLC have gone into the heart of the community like the site inside the Cristo Rey Catholic Church, the traditional unifying place in that part of the city.

One of the providers is also setting up shop at Cameron Park. Pastor Victor Alvarez – like the priests at Cristo Rey – provided space for a testing site for the barrio with a population bigger than Olmito's which had not been addressed either by the county or the city. Cameron Park is literally surrounded by the city, which has never annexed it.

We are now in the sixth month of dealing with the COVID-19 infection. Think about it. For the last six months, unless you were willing to fork out good bucks at a private clinic or have your insurance cover it, you'd have to find a way out to the park miles from most of the neighborhoods of the city and await your turn in hours-long traffic lines. At the end of the maze, a health staff worker (not a doctor or PA) would ask a few questions and give you the thumbs up or thumbs down for a test.

On top of that, the city had only one authorized testing contractor – Valley Med Urgent Care with a staff of seven that rose to 12 and was crying for volunteers to help them tackle a massive, and growing, number of possible cases – to who it paid close to $815,000.


(We have heard reports and are gathering proof that some of those tested died before they got the test results from the Sports Park.)

Hernandez might have been King Canute trying to turn back the waves. Of the estimated 526 deaths confirmed by the county since March, some 358 – 68 percent, nearly seven in 10 – were Brownsville residents.

There, and in their private clinic, Urgent Med toiled mightily – and vainly – to stem the tide of a rising number of cases. The infection has not stopped, and it is Brownsville that is leading Cameron County in the number of positive cases, and deaths. Cameron County is the thirteen largest county in the state of Texas. However, when it comes to the highest number of cases the county it now ranks number eight.

“The county ranked number 5 in regards to COVID-19 related deaths in the state” said Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino.

As the contagion peaked, there were numerous complaints made to the city and elected officials over the lengthy waiting time to get on the Valley Urgent Med testing schedule and the lag between testing and getting the results. It would be July 3 and July 10 before the Valley Med monopoly was broken and two other players in the testing game were given a chance to wet their beak.

With reported positive cases in the county averaging more than 200 a day and climbing in mid-July, Valley Med informed the city July 30 that it would no longer be performing the tests for the city at the Sports Park. Two outfits, The Port Occupational and Medical Clinic LLC with president Dr. Antonio Diaz (August 3) and South Texas Medical Associates with their Reliable Urgent Care LLC represented by administrator Edward Bustos (August 10) inked the deals.


On August 25, for example, Cameron County reported 266 new positive cases bringing the county total to 20,335. According to the county health department, 56.3

percent of active cases come from Brownsville. That comes to 11,387 cases, with more than 4,000 in August alone.

Someone has said that Eder Hernandez and Valley Med can't be blamed. They saw their chance and took it and made out like thieves with the city-granted monopoly, which they admitted they had on a local popular podcast. Mendez and City Manager Noel Bernal justified the move under Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's emergency order.

The righteous hand-wringing and appeals to Providence by Hernandez was just a diversion to cloak the fact that the virus had outstripped Valley Med's inadequate staff and had overwhelmed their resources.

Why didn't they city hire five outfits in March and place testing sites all across Brownsville as the new companies – using the same CARES COVID-19 money – is doing today?

The new outfit at the Sports Park is Houston-based Davaco Inc. They report that they were ordered by the Governors's Office to stop testing in Hillsboro, TX, and head down to Brownsville. It is a team of 10 people being paid $20.00 an hour. including a registered nurse. Last Friday they tested 80 people test, and Saturday, Sunday and Monday only 70 tests were done. The tests are sent to their lab and turn around is 2-5 days for a result.

Davaco estimates that each test and the lab results costs them about $40. In Valley Med's case, they charged the city $110 per test and PAs like Eder were paid S150 per hour.

As we said before, Eder Hernandez and Valley Med aren't really to blame. If a home owner leaves the door to his house wide open and a thief walks in and robs him, who's to blame?

At least one of the commissioner, Jessica Tetreau, was championing Hernandez as a member of the "Brownsville team" weeks before it was chosen as the only company the city would contract to perform the testing. Even before the testing contract was given to Valley Med on March 24, she was championing the clinic as early as March 2.


Even Mayor Trey Mendez ordered that all city COVID-19 testing be steered to Valley Med and that positive cases be referred to their private clinic for treatment.






"The people who are looking for the test, if they have medical insurance, then the medical insurance will be taken through the office of Dr. [Eder] Hernandez,” Mendez said then. “If for any reason they don’t have insurance, then there are funds available through the City of Brownsville to cover that."





In contrast, the city limited its notice of free tests at the Sports Park to its page and placed a notification just Tuesday even though they have been there since last Friday (Aug. 21). Davaco was supposed to stay here until the 30th, but cancelled its stay here until the 28th because of a lack of interest.

By placing the testing center far from the population, limiting providers to one vendor with less than a dozen staff members, and restricting access to the majority of Brownsville residents with limited transportation, it seems to have been a disaster by design. 

Who put together the city's plan and response to spend the CARES Act money on the testing? Did the city's medical director sign on to this scheme whose design effectively limited the population to be tested and therefore presented a skewered picture of the spread of the virus in the city.

Did the city manager or the entire city commission sign on to this flawed design? After all, one of the commissioners – Dr. Rose Gowen – is a medical doctor and health professional.


(In fact, the city and the county have been data-challenged, with the  county judge and his medical director as well as Mendez, admitting that some of the positives and deaths reported as happening overnight were really people who had been tested weeks before and had died then. Nobody really knows the true picture. The state, alarmed at the murky picture on the border, sent teams to verify the true nature of this pandemic.) 

At least one of the commissioner, Jessica Tetreau, was championing Hernandez as a member of the "Brownsville team" weeks before it was chosen as the only company the city would contract to perform the testing. As late as March 14 she was reporting "zero" cases and downplaying the situation.

After the debacle, she tried to distance herself from Valley Med and Hernandez.

By placing the testing center far from the population, limiting providers to one vendor with less than a dozen staff members, and restricting access to the majority of Brownsville residents with limited transportation, it seems to have been a disaster by design.

People have already been asking questions:

"This is criminal. The contract for testing should have been given to various real doctors with clinics in different parts of town to serve the citizens. Instead people were stuck in lines at the Sports Park with the city paying police overtime to control the traffic. Also if they would have done bids, which they LEGALLY should have done, it would have saved the taxpayers a fortune. And what about the tests? Dr. Eder (?) was paid top dollar to use obsolete testing. Avoiding the bidding process is illegal and should be investigated."

A local blogger has reported that he has filed a complaint charging the city with CARES Act fraud with the U.S. Dept. of Justice. Is that what it will take to own up to this ineffective performance and try to recover some of the funds?

Now that school has started, if the city's response to the need for COVID-19 testing was to be graded, it would be a total failure and probably merits no more than a "D" on the curve or a flat "F" in reality.