Edinburg, Texas (Rio Grande Valley): DHR Health has partnered with the Texas A&M School of Law Legal Clinics to establish a unique medical/legal partnership that will help indigent patients, within its hospital system, who face legal issues outside the medical setting. The program, called CALMA (Community and Legal-Medical Alliance) will focus on helping patients, who meet certain income guidelines, to overcome legal barriers that impact their health. The goal of this program is not only to help patients but to strengthen DHR Health’s ability to deliver comprehensive care.
CALMA is supported by a moonshot grant from the Texas Access to Justice Foundation (TAJF) and managed by the Economic Justice Initiative (EJI) and Texas A&M University School of Law Legal Clinics. Attorneys, law students, and paralegals will provide free legal services to qualified patients in the areas of housing instability, public health benefits, advance care planning, and family law matters among others.
As DHR Health leadership explains, some patients who seek medical treatment face health inequities at home that often contribute to health-harming social needs.
“When legal issues remain unresolved for indigent patients, they create delays in seeking medical treatment, repeat visits, or even poorer health outcomes,” said Dr. Carlos Cardenas, DHR Health Chairman of the Board. “This partnership is designed to close this gap by embedding legal assistance into our healthcare delivery system and help our patients overall.”
To ensure support reaches those in greatest need, a patient must meet income criteria established by TAJF. Once enrolled, they may receive legal services in the areas of estate & health planning, housing & tenant rights, and public benefit appeals. Services will be administered on-site at DHR Health’s main hospital, located at 5501 S. McColl Road, by a team of legal access fellows and a staff attorney who will manage client intake, provide resources, and facilitate casework.
CALMA also partnered with the Texas Legal Services Center to help community members access additional resources via a legal kiosk located at the DHR Health main hospital location. Funded by TAJF, TLSC’s legal kiosk program is a statewide initiative to connect Texans with free legal resources. The legal kiosk gives patients free tools and resources to understand their rights, access court-ready forms, and receive free legal advice via real-time chat with a TLSC attorney on TexasLawHelp.org. Kiosk visitors at DHR Health spent almost 13 hours researching their legal issue or receiving legal assistance within the first 3 weeks of the kiosk installation.
"We are excited to expand the law school’s presence in the RGV and increase access to much-needed legal services,” said Fatma Marouf, director of Texas A&M Legal Clinics. “MLPs provide a critical service by recognizing legal needs as a social determinant of health.”
Pablo Javier Almaguer, senior attorney fellow at the Economic Justice Initiative, highlighted how such free services could positively impact the RGV community.
“In the Rio Grande Valley, access to legal services is deeply connected to health, stability, and dignity. Too many families face preventable crises—unsafe housing, loss of benefits, lack of planning—not because they don’t care, but because they lack access to legal support. CALMA recognizes that reality. This partnership is a powerful step toward treating legal help as an essential part of community wellbeing and ensuring RGV residents receive the holistic support they deserve.”
The legal kiosk is open 24 hours, and visitors may chat with an attorney Monday through Thursday from 10 AM to 2 PM. To learn more information, go to tlsc.org/kiosks. To learn more about DHR Health’s CALMA program that helps indigent patients with legal issues within DHR Health’s hospital system, email [email protected].
About DHR Health
DHR Health was founded in 1997 by a visionary group of local physicians and business leaders to address the healthcare challenges and disparities faced by the people of the Rio Grande Valley, a region in deep South Texas that has been historically underserved, lacking access to healthcare resources found in major metropolitan areas.
Today, DHR Health stands as one of the largest physician-owned hospital systems in the United States. The health system has expanded access to world-class, comprehensive care through six inpatient facilities and more than 80 outpatient clinics. Serving a diverse community of over 1.5 million residents, DHR Health is powered by a medical staff of over 625 physicians, 355 advanced practice providers, and 1,970 nurses among its 7,275 employees, offering access to more than 70 medical specialties and subspecialties throughout the region.
Headquartered in Edinburg, Texas, DHR Health is committed to serving Starr, Hidalgo, Cameron, and Willacy counties. Recent expansions include a medical campus in Starr County to expand access to primary and specialty healthcare services, advance clinical research, and train the next generation of physicians through the establishment of a clinic and training space for Starr County’s first ever family medicine physician residency graduate medical education program, a new hospital in Brownsville and the upcoming behavioral health hospital in Pharr, Texas, built in partnership with the City of Pharr, and the State of Texas.
DHR Health is dedicated to advancing clinical research and expanding graduate medical education to train the next generation of physicians in the Rio Grande Valley. With the region’s largest medical residency program and the only fellowship programs in South Texas, DHR Health continues to invest in graduate medical education and recently partnered with the University of Houston Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine to provide undergraduate medical education training opportunities for future physicians.
Distinguished by innovation and excellence, DHR Health became the first Level I Trauma Center in the region and continues to invest in advanced medical technologies, including extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), robotic surgery platforms such as the Da Vinci 5 and ROSA systems, and the ION robotic-assisted bronchoscopy system. The health system proudly operates South Texas’s only freestanding and certified women’s hospital, recognized as a Level IV maternal care center for delivering the highest standard of care and has collaborated with Driscoll Children’s Hospital to provide pediatric care for those children. DHR Health has established and continues to expand access to kidney transplant services in the Rio Grande Valley.
DHR Health continues to create a world-class health system to advance medicine and increase access for the communities we serve by empowering caregivers to heal through compassion, knowledge, innovation, integrated care and excellence.
Learn more about DHR Health at www.dhrhealth.com, or connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
About the Economic Justice Initiative
Texas Legal Services Center is a statewide nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide high-quality legal representation, advice, advocacy and education at no cost to underserved people across the state. With more than a dozen practice areas, our work touches almost every aspect of civil law that impacts low-income Texans. Learn more at tlsc.org.
Powered by Texas Legal Services Center, TexasLawHelp.org provides free, reliable legal information to low-income Texans. The site is part of a collaborative effort by Texas legal aid organizations and foundations, courts, and nonprofits.
About Texas A&M Law School
Texas A&M Law is pioneering the future of legal education with unique momentum from our strategic location in one of the largest and fastest growing legal markets in the country (Dallas-Fort Worth). Driven by our Aggie Core Values and a distinct combination of scholarly excellence and real-world application, our innovative and collaborative approach equips service-oriented lawyers, as well as professional and industry leaders of all kinds, to address the legal, economic, and societal issues critical to the future of Texas and the global community.
