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Laura Garcia is the afternoon/evening news editor for Texas Tribune. Before that, she was a health care business reporter at the San Antonio Express-News and previously worked at the Victoria Advocate, The Roanoke Times in Virginia, Corpus Christi Caller-Times and the Longview News-Journal. She is the president of the San Antonio Association of Hispanic Journalists, a San Antonio-based nonprofit that raises funds for journalism student scholarships and advocates for diversity in newsrooms, and was a 2021 National Fellow at the Center for Health Journalism. A South Texas native, she graduated from San Antonio College and Texas State University with journalism degrees. For her reporting project “Access Denied,” Garcia was awarded first place by the Texas Medical Association in the “in-depth print/online” category this year, and she placed third in the “social justice reporting” category in the 2023 Best of the West Contest by San Antonio Express-News.
Articles
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The goal is to keep patients from falling through the cracks in the health care system — cracks that can be more dangerous for Latinos in San Antonio's South Side.
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In Texas, the Bexar County Hospital District’s board of managers unanimously approved plans to build two new hospitals in medically underserved areas.
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.jpg?itok=LODGO12k "May 28 Health Fair")
Building on Express-News Reporter Laura Garcia's in-depth series on health care disparities in San Antonio, she will engage a panel of experts in a frank discussion about such inequities on the South Side, as well as solutions.
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.jpg?itok=IEmIMiEf "An empty wheelchair is seen in the hallway at Texas Vista Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, on Oct. 26, 2021.")
The project's investigative journalism has made an impact. Bexar County, for example, is using maps created for the series to change its approach.
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In the southern part of the city, options for hospitals, medical specialists and surgical centers are limited. Those in the industry say there’s little motivation to change that.
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.jpg?itok=AXRyggsN "Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff receives his COVID-19 vaccination Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020 at University Hospital from medical assistant Brenda Gutierrez. Wolff said the 5,300 who have died after four surges of the disease during the pandemic “lost their lives long before they should have.” The county is launching an initiative to address geographic health disparities that surfaced during the pandemic.")
Bexar County will hire a county public health director and other core staff as part of an initiative to revamp health care in fast-growing outlying areas of the community, filling gaps in service that he said were revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Rocha Garcia’s anxiety touched on a rarely discussed reality of life in San Antonio: Your health, as well as your quality of life and opportunities, are powerfully influenced by where you live.
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.jpg?itok=9C20bIrm "A snapshot of redlining in San Antonio")
The San Antonio Express-News analyzed historical census data between 1970 and 2020 that covered three topics: education atainment, Hispanic ethnicity and median family income.
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In the nation’s seventh largest city, access to medical care really depends on where you live.