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closeLast Thursday, July 2, our county lost one of its truest and most tireless humanitarians.
Born and educated in her native Peru, Isabel P. Ruiz was trained as a physician and completed her residency there as an OB/GYN before following her fiancé to San Luis Obispo, where they married.
For more than three decades, Ruiz worked to help local people access and use the health-care system, to advocate for the rights of the underrepresented, and to educate and inform all people, but especially women and members of the Latino community.
Isabel often said she wanted to “be the bridge” that would lead struggling individuals to a self-sufficient life. As someone who knew her well, I can testify that “being the bridge” took much more time and hard work than any of her eight-to-five jobs allowed. She was one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever known and a great role model by any measure.
As director of EOC Health Services, clinic manager of Community Health Centers, social worker for the San Luis Obispo County Health Department and board member of French Hospital Medical Center, the American Cancer Society, the Latino Outreach Council and the Oceano Community Center — Isabel also found time to initiate many programs. She started a teen sex education class, the now-commonplace community health fairs and a free mammogram program for uninsured women, and developed senior health screening programs.
For this and so much more, Isabel was awarded the Cuesta College Women of Distinction Award, among other recognitions.
Diagnosed with breast cancer, first in 1987 and again in 2000, Isabel considered each day a gift.
She continued, even during her long illness and regular chemotherapy treatments, to teach a message of early detection to women whenever and wherever she could.
In 2007, I established the Isabel P. Ruiz Humanitarian Award through the San Luis Obispo County Community Foundation because I could think of no better way to honor her, and no better way to ensure that her legacy of caring community outreach would continue long into the future.
This year, we will honor the third recipient of the award established in Isabel’s honor, an award that recognizes “... demonstrated selfless desire to help others, community leadership in the county, steady ongoing advocacy to create change and an ability to influence others to create change.”
We thank you, Isabel, for living that way yourself and for giving us that lofty criteria to live up to. You will be missed.
Bill Broadbent of San Luis Obispo established the Isabel P. Ruiz Humanitarian Award with the San Luis Obispo County Community Foundation in 2007.
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