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Bureau County clinic creating blueprint to address gaps in rural women’s healthcare · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

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  Speaker 1: Bureau County Clinic creating blueprint to address gaps in rural
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  women's healthcare. Written by Bill Frescoes, This article is being
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  read by an automated voice brought to you by Everlett.
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  As rural areas across the country continue to lose access
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  to obstetric and women's health services, leaders at the Bureau
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  County Health Department say their newly established Family Health Clinic
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  is proving local health departments can help fill the gap
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  and potentially serve as a model for communities across the state.
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  The Bureau County Family Health Clinic, which opened in April
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  last year, was created specifically to address growing concerns surrounding
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  women's health access in Bureau, Putnam and Marshall Counties. After
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  years of hospital service reductions and providers shortages, we felt
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  that the health department needed to step up and take
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  responsibility for local health. Bureau County Board of Health chare
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  Pat Show said, if you look at this area ten
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  years ago, we had three hospitals providing ob services. All
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  of a sudden it fell apart, and it's not just
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  happening here. According to a twenty twenty five study from
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  the University of Minnesota, School of Public Health. Access to
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  obstetric care in rural areas is declining significantly across the country.
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  Between twenty ten and twenty twenty two, seven states had
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  at least a quarter of their hospitals stopped providing obstetric services.
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  By twenty twenty two, there were eight states where more
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  than two thirds of rural hospitals were without obstetric services. Sku,
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  who has chaired the Bureau County Board of Health for
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  about thirty years, said the clinic was born out of
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  a Community Needs aspsciment and conversations with longtime women's health
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  providers about how rural communities could respond to declining care access.
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  We can't always expect a large health system to fix everything, said,
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  We also have to know what our local needs are
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  and we have to be responsible locally. The clinic now
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  provides women's healthcare, family planning, prenatal and postpartum care, gynecological services,
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  primary care, immunizations, and behavioral health support through a partnership
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  with Aruka Institute of Healing. Angie Readner, who has worked
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  in women's healthcare for four decades and as a midwife
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  for thirty five years, said the clinic was designed around
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  low barrier care tailored to the realities of rural communities.
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  When you can include the family and the women's healthcare
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  together in one setting, you're really providing comprehensive low barrier care,
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  Readner said. For rural women, that's important because sometimes you're
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  traveling an hour and a half to get the care
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  that you need. Readner said the clinic has focused heavily
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  on prenatal and postpartum care, areas she believes have become
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  increasingly vulnerable as rural hospitals have scaled back upstetrical programs.
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  She added that postpartum care is often overlooked despite rising
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  concerns nationwide surrounding maternal mental health and safety. Unfortunately, one
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  of the leading causes of mortality during the postpartum period
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  is maternal suicide and violence. Readner said, we really need
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  to make sure that we are available and that we
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  are seeing women after they have their babies easily, quickly,
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  and regularly. According to Schau, the clinic started entirely from scratch,
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  a challenge both she and Readner acknowledged is one reason
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  similar models have not become more common among local health departments.
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  This coming together was certainly not easy, show said, you
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  have to set up a clinic, build consensus, get community support,
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  and have your board beside you rather than relying on
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  major grants, Show said. The health department used reserve funds
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  and secured a one hundred and fifty thousand dollars line
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  of credit through county government to launch the clinic. That
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  just shows you how supportive the community was. Scaou said.
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  The clinic has quickly grown since opening, with officials saying
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  patient demand exceeded typical expectations for a startup rural practice.
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  We are full moost days, Readner said. From day one,
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  we've seen a minimum of fourteen to sixteen patients a day.
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  Usually when you start a practice you see two maybe
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  three patients a day if you're lucky. Chu said patients
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  now come from roughly fifty zip codes throughout the region.
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  Repeatable success. The clinics leadership believes the model could eventually
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  help shape rural health strategies elsewhere in Illinois and beyond.
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  Chu said he has already presented on the clinic at
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  a national conference and discussed the concept with state and
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  maternal health officials. I hope they do look to model this,
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  Readner said, of other health departments, we have to realize
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  that our communities have to take care of our communities.
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  Looking ahead, Readner said, the clinic hopes to continue expand
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  community education, increase access to walk in care for sexually
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  transmitted infections and urgent women's health concerns, and reduce stigma
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  surrounding issues such as substance use, violence, and mental health.
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  We need to be very intent on meeting their needs
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  for low barrier care and non stigmatizing care, Readner said.
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  Scow said the long term goal extends beyond their community
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  and ties directly to the future healthcare of rural communities.
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  If we're going to keep our rural communities viable, we
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  have to have young families and we have to support
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  and provide things they need. Shu said people in rural
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  areas deserve quality care.