A ViM INTERVIEW: Natalia DeRuzzio

For over a decade, Patient Services Manager Natalia DeRuzzio has led our team of Community Health Workers in addressing the nonclinical factors that lead to a healthy life. Since November, Natalia has played a pivotal role in BASIC’s efforts to care for our patients, their families, and the larger immigrant community. A former lawyer, fierce advocate, and brilliant systems navigator, Natalia has been working double-time to ensure that the Berkshires continues to be a place where all of our community members can thrive.

Interview conducted by Sarah Trudgeon. It has been edited for length and clarity.

It’s great to be talking to you this afternoon, Natalia! For our readers, can you describe what the Patient Services team does?  

We connect our patients with resources in the community, like housing, employment, food, schools so their children can attend classes, dentists when their children need dentists, diapers, clothing—everything that a person needs to build a healthy life for their family. 

We also help people understand and navigate systems outside of this office. We are good at that. Often people are new to the area and we are helping them settle, with a new language, new culture, new systems, new barriers—but also all the strength and possibility of coming to a new place. 

Finally, we are advocates. We are always trying to understand what kind of gaps are in the systems and how we can find creative ways to fill the gaps and advocate for systems change. I have always believed in working inside the systems to create changes that sometimes are not enormous, are not necessarily in policies, but they really impact people’s lives.

Sometimes we cannot change the whole world, but we can change the world of the people around us. This is a little bit of what we do.  

That is a lot! How did you come to be in this position? 

It’s a long story! I was an attorney in Colombia working towards a professorial career, then about 15 years ago I came to New York to study English. But I fell in love with American culture and all the wonderful things I got to see and the people that I got to meet. It was life-changing and I decided to stay. Even though I knew things would have to change for me professionally, I had always wanted to help and to advocate for others whose voices were not as amplified as mine. And it has been a process because at some points I felt, myself, that I didn't have a voice because I couldn't speak the language. But slowly, it changed.

Then one day in 2015, when I was working as a babysitter, I was taking the children to a chiropractic appointment and met a ViM volunteer. She was the missing piece to my puzzle! I had been looking for an opportunity to work in a place like VIM, but it wasn’t on my radar. It was pure destiny.

So I started volunteering as a receptionist and medical and behavioral health interpreter. In 2016 I was offered a part-time job as a Community Health Worker and in 2018, I took a full-time position as Patient Services Coordinator. My team was just me and one volunteer, who still volunteers for us! In 2020, the pandemic showed the importance of strategically investing in nonclinical services and building up this program, and I was offered a position as Patient Services Manager.

Now we have three more Community Health Workers on staff, three retirees, four patients, and some of my former students who have also become volunteers and are helping others to build a better life for themselves. I am lucky and honored to do this work with the best and most inspiring team!

What a great story. And I love how many staff members at ViM have started as volunteers. You’ve been at ViM for 10 years now! What is your favorite part of the job? 

I think it’s two things: our mission and our team, which is very diverse. You can learn so much from spaces with different people with different cultures and perspectives. 

And I’m a mission-oriented person, so it is a privilege to witness the transformation our patients go through because of one little seed that we planted somewhere on their journey. Recovering from illness, getting healthier, achieving goals, buying a house, buying a car, setting up a business, when just a few years before their story was so different, and nothing felt possible. It's a good reason to wake up every day and go to work. I'm not saying that it's easy—we help patients who have been through a lot of trauma, and we feel it personally, and we work hard doing everything we can to help them—but it’s something that I'm happy to come and do every day.  

It must be amazing to see that impact materialize. Is there anything we’re missing? Maybe something our readers might not know? 

There is another place where we have invested quite a lot of time and effort, and that is education. There are things that, when we know them, empower us to make better decisions and help us get ahead.  

For example, right now, we are doing a lot of education about understanding your rights as an immigrant under the constitution, how you can protect yourself, how you can be prepared for an emergency, and working with the patients together as a team to develop those plans and to acquire those skills. It is as important to our patients’ health as anything we do.  

So there are really two components to our work: support and empowerment. You want to be there for people when they need support, but you also want to give them the tools so they can get their own wings and fly without needing you. 

Yes, and I’ve seen how they then begin to help others thrive. 

Oh my God, yes. You see how they start a business, then how the businesses becomes part of the community, then how that creates opportunities for others. They also become navigators themselves, sharing knowledge and resources. 

They say that when people don't need you anymore is when you have done your job. And that’s a little bit what we have been able to accomplish.