Connect with us

Mississippi Today

Clarksdale health department, once possibly poised to close, gets a new building

Published

1 year ago

on

Instead of potentially closing, the Coahoma County Health Department is moving to a nicer, newer home.

The move to a building at the local hospital will preserve public health care in Clarksdale, the heart of the Mississippi Delta and a region with unique health needs. As health departments across the state struggle, the relocation is an example of what happens when local entities partner with the state to serve the community, said Jon Levingston, economic development director for Coahoma County.

The decades-old building was in need of multiple repairs, but it would be too expensive to renovate, and no other buildings in the area were suitable, according to a July 24 press release from Crossroads Economic Partnership, an organization tasked with increasing economic viability in Coahoma County.

“Simply by looking at it, one could tell it was an old building with multiple issues,” Levingston said. “The staff, I think, really wanted to be in a different facility where their patients felt more at ease.”

Coahoma County is not alone – some of the state’s county health departments are beyond repair. Former State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs in 2021 showed photos to lawmakers of county health departments with gaping holes in the walls, leaking ceilings, mold and dilapidated bathrooms, according to a New York Times article.

The State Health Department was prepared to direct Coahoma County patients to nearby facilities. The closest health departments are miles away in Quitman, Tunica, Tallahatchie, Sunflower and Bolivar Counties. In an area where transportation can be a major challenge to health care access, keeping the health department in Clarksdale is a major win, Levingston said.

In a statement emailed to Mississippi Today, State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney denied that the health department was going to close, though it’s unclear how it would have remained open. Levingston said his understanding was that the facility would have closed without another building.

Daniel Edney, M.D., is the State Health Officer. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

The new space became available after Delta Health System, which has undergone financial stress in recent years, bought out its lease of the Northwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center in April, and the county resumed its operation. Delta Health had leased the facility since February 2021.

Together, the hospital’s board of trustees and Coahoma County Board of Supervisors offered the space to the health department.

“… It was an easy and natural decision for our board to offer to assist the State Department of Health,” said Bowen Flowers, president of the hospital board of trustees, in the press release. “The county health department needed to upgrade their space. We have the space and wanted to make it available to them, which our board voted unanimously to do.”

After relocation and a ribbon cutting, the health department will be located in the hospital’s adjacent medical office building, along with other health care offices connected to the hospital.

While it’s relocating, the health department, which is usually open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Mondays and Fridays, will only be open on Fridays during the entire month of August, according to the state health department’s website. Once it’s complete, the health department will resume normal hours, and there are no plans to extend its hours in the future, according to Mississippi State Health Department spokesperson Liz Sharlot.

Edney has spoken extensively about increasing health care services in the Delta, where he was raised, as well as the need for partnerships between local and state partners to ensure the vitality of county health services especially. Edney called the collaboration in Coahoma a “model” to follow in other communities.

“These are the types of partnerships that are necessary to sustain excellent healthcare for all our citizens, especially in the rural areas of our state such as the Mississippi Delta region,” he said in the press release.

Public health services are becoming even more essential as Mississippi’s health care infrastructure continues to crumble. Almost half of the state’s rural hospitals are at risk of closure, according to one report.

Though budget cuts imposed on the State Health Department in recent years have trickled down to reduced hours and services at county health departments, they still offer essential services, such as STI testing, vaccinations, diabetes and hypertension care, pap smears and pregnancy testing.

Edney has prioritized increasing staffing, hours and services at county health departments statewide despite not receiving the funding he requested from the state Legislature this year.

“I can’t allow this to continue,” Edney previously told Mississippi Today. “I can’t allow counties not to have access to public health.”

Currently, Mississippi has 86 health departments and 82 counties — several counties have more than one, while others have none.

Levingston recalled reactions from Coahoma County Health Department employees when he showed them the new facility.

“They were just looking around with stunned looks on their faces because it was so clean and so nice,” he said. “One lady looked at me with tears in her eyes and whispered, ‘Do you think this could really be ours?’

“‘Absolutely,’ I said.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/?p=272745

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1946

Published

23 hours ago

on

December 23, 2024

By

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-23 07:00:00

Dec. 23, 1946

Chuck Cooper Credit: Wikipedia

University of Tennessee refused to play a basketball game with Duquesne University, because they had a Black player, Chuck Cooper. Despite their refusal, the all-American player and U.S. Navy veteran went on to become the first Black player to participate in a college basketball game south of the Mason-Dixon line. Cooper became the first Black player ever drafted in the NBA — drafted by the Boston Celtics. He went on to be admitted to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

Podcast: Ray Higgins: PERS needs both extra cash and benefit changes for future employees

Published

24 hours ago

on

December 23, 2024

By

mississippitoday.org – Bobby Harrison – 2024-12-23 06:30:00

Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison talks with Ray Higgins, executive director of the Mississippi Public Employees Retirement System, about proposed changes in pension benefits for future employees and what is needed to protect the system for current employees and retirees. Higgins also stresses the importance of the massive system to the Mississippi economy.

READ MORE: As lawmakers look to cut taxes, Mississippi mayors and county leaders outline infrastructure needs

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

‘Bringing mental health into the spaces where moms already are’: UMMC program takes off

Published

1 day ago

on

December 23, 2024

By

mississippitoday.org – Sophia Paffenroth – 2024-12-23 06:00:00

A program aimed at increasing access to mental health services for mothers has taken off at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. 

The program, called CHAMP4Moms, is an extension of an existing program called CHAMP – which stands for Child Access to Mental Health and Psychiatry. The goal is to make it easier for moms to reach mental health resources during a phase when some may need it the most and have the least time. 

CHAMP4Moms offers a direct phone line that health providers can call if they are caring for a pregnant woman or new mother they believe may have unaddressed mental health issues. On the line, health providers can speak directly to a reproductive psychiatrist who can guide them on how to screen, diagnose and treat mothers. That means that moms don’t have to go out of their way to find a psychiatrist, and health care providers who don’t have extensive training in psychiatry can still help these women. 

“Basically, we’re trying to bring mental health into the spaces where moms already are,” explained Calandrea Taylor, the program manager. “Because of the low workforce that we have in the state, it’s a lot to try to fill the state with mental health providers. But what we do is bring the mental health practice to you and where mothers are. And we’re hoping that that reduces stigma.”

Launched in 2023, the program has had a slow lift off, Taylor said. But the phone line is up and running, as the team continues to make additions to the program – including a website with resources that Taylor expects will go live next year. 

To fill the role of medical director, UMMC brought in a California-based reproductive psychiatrist, Dr. Emily Dossett. Dossett, who grew up in Mississippi and still has family in the state, says it has been rewarding to come full circle and serve her home state – which suffers a dearth of mental health providers and has no reproductive psychiatrists. 

“I love it. It’s really satisfying to take the experience I’ve been able to pull together over the past 20 years practicing medicine and then apply it to a place I love,” Dossett said. “I feel like I understand the people I work with, I relate to them, I like hearing where they’re from and being able to picture it … That piece of it has really been very much a joy.”

As medical director, Dossett is able to educate maternal health providers on mental health issues. But she’s also an affiliate professor at UMMC, which she says allows her to train up the next generation of psychiatrists on the importance of maternal and reproductive psychiatry – an often-overlooked aspect in the field. 

If people think of reproductive mental health at all, they likely think of postpartum depression, Dossett said. But reproductive psychiatry is far more encompassing than just the postpartum time period – and includes many more conditions than just depression. 

“Most reproductive psychiatrists work with pregnant and postpartum people, but there’s also work to be done around people who have issues connected to their menstrual cycle or perimenopause,” she explained. “… There’s depression, certainly. But we actually see more anxiety, which comes in lots of different forms – it can be panic disorder, general anxiety, OCD.”

Tackling mental health in this population doesn’t just improve people’s quality of life. It can be lifesaving – and has the potential to mitigate some of the state’s worst health metrics.

Mental health disorders are the leading cause of pregnancy-related death, which is defined by the Centers for Disease Control as any death up to a year postpartum that is caused by or worsened by pregnancy. 

In Mississippi, 80% of pregnancy-related deaths between 2016 and 2020 were deemed preventable, according to the latest Mississippi Maternal Mortality Report.

Mississippi is not alone in this, Dossett said. Historically, mental health has not been taken seriously in the western world, for a number of reasons – including stigma and a somewhat arbitrary division between mind and body, Dossett explained.

“You see commercials on TV of happy pregnant ladies. You see magazines of celebrities and their baby bumps, and everybody is super happy. And so, if you don’t feel that way, there’s this tremendous amount of shame … But another part of it is medicine and the way that our health system is set up, it’s just classically divided between physical and mental health.”

Dossett encourages women to tell their doctor about any challenges they’re facing – even if they seem normal.

“There are a lot of people who have significant symptoms, but they think it’s normal,” Dossett said. “They don’t know that there’s a difference between the sort of normal adjustment that people have after having a baby – and it is a huge adjustment – and symptoms that get in the way of their ability to connect or bond with the baby, or their ability to eat or sleep, or take care of their other children or eventually go to work.”

She also encourages health care providers to develop a basic understanding of mental health issues and to ask patients questions about their mood, thoughts and feelings. 

CHAMP4Moms is a resource Dossett hopes providers will take advantage of – but she also hopes they will shape and inform the program in its inaugural year. 

“We’re available, we’re open for calls, we’re open for feedback and suggestions, we’re open for collaboration,” she said. “We want this to be something that can hopefully really move the needle on perinatal mental health and substance use in the state – and I think it can.”

Providers can call the CHAMP main line at 601-984-2080 for resources and referral options throughout the state. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Trending