This is the first of a 5 part series on "Women's Health". Thank you to Lebanon Family Health Services for their assistance with this series.
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Lebanon Family Health Services
Ann Biser, Donna Williams, Kim Kreider Umble, Vicki DeLoatch |
A young couple with a newborn infant fastened to a car seat
carrier was exiting Lebanon Family Health Services on a late September
day. In the brightly lit waiting area
with neatly arranged children’s toys, a new mother nurses her infant. Next to her, a pregnant woman waits. Nutrition information is displayed about the
room that is also the home for the WIC program (Women, Infants and Children-special
supplemental nutrition program). As you
enter the upstairs hallway, one will find displayed the remnants of a
“clothesline project”, an exhibit where colorful t-shirts depict the tragedy
endured by those who are survivors of domestic abuse and rape put together by
the Sexual Assault and Resource Center. Each
shirt tells its own story of pain, sorrow and agony. However, like a mother’s embrace, the warmth
that permeates the walls of this central Pennsylvania facility encircle the
display and all the empowered souls it represents. They have endured and they are safe in this
place.
It hasn’t always been this way. In 1973, when Lebanon Family Health Services
began, these women had nowhere to go for women’s health services. Through the years, as the ranks of the
uninsured grew, so did the number of women showing up to the emergency room in
the Lebanon County community ready to deliver a baby that had never received
any prenatal care. In 1990, their
services expanded to include prenatal care.
For over 35 years, The Lebanon Family Health Services has been serving
uninsured and underinsured woman with reproductive health and nutrition
services.
The benefits of prenatal care are conclusive. Women who receive prenatal care while
pregnant experience a dramatic reduction in maternal deaths, low birth-weight
babies, miscarriages, birth defects and many other preventable infant
problems. However, with roughly 13% of
woman being uninsured and many others considered underinsured because their
health insurance policies either do not cover prenatal care or consider it a
pre-existing condition, many woman, particularly minority woman are not able to
access this vital and research proven medical care.[1] The sad reality, as the numbers of uninsured
has grown over the past few decades, so has the grim statistic of infant
mortality. According to the Centers for Disease Control,
in 1960, the United States ranked 12th in infant mortality, 23rd
in 1990 and 29th in 2004.
In 2014, because of the Patient Protection and Affordable
Care Act (PPACA), these women that have utilized Lebanon Family Health Services
will now be insured. Above all however, the
PPACA also states that as part of the essential benefits, healthcare items that insurance plans are now mandated to
cover, prenatal and infant care are included.
It has become a question to many that have worked for decades helping
the uninsured acquire access to healthcare what will happen to places like The
Lebanon Family Health Services. For Kim
Kreider-Umble, CEO of Lebanon Family Health Services, she welcomes this change. “Bring them on,” she responds in response to
the new inflow of patients. After all,
this is what she and advocates like her have been fighting to achieve for
decades. “Now, this can be a place of
choice instead of a place of need for our clients,” she explains. They plan on marketing directly to this
population with their quality services and meet the increased demand with smart
utilization of resources such as schedule adjusting and doubling duties. “After all,” Kim concludes, “Healthcare is a
right, not a privilege!”
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