Scarcer resources challenge health-care services

   The state's funding ax has been cutting into grants for the Yuma County Health Department, with more likely to come this year and next as the economic downturn continues.

  Funding cuts to date have amounted to more than half a million dollars.

  In some cases, programs have been eliminated. In others, the loss of funding presents a challenge to juggle resources and staffing in an effort to continue to provide vital health care services to Yuma County residents, said Becky Brooks, director.

  So far, she's been able to adjust resources to maintain the most critical programs.

  "We're still here doing what we do, providing health services to the community. But a lot depends on future cuts. It's very hard. We see the value and significance of each program or we wouldn't have it in the first place."

  The programs Brooks is most concerned about are the tuberculosis and immunization programs. Both have suffered funding cuts, with more reductions expected.

  "The TB program is a big program," she said, and especially critical in Yuma County.

  "Someone may cross the border and not even know they have TB and infect others. And we get a lot of visitors from all over who may have a disease and not know it."

  She continued: "It's always happening. People need treatment and followup. We will need to continue the same level of services the best we can. If we don't, it will become a big problem."

  Fortunately, Brooks said, the health department has a good relationship with its counterparts across the border to exchange information on TB and other communicable diseases.

  As for the immunization program, she said, the county has received a substantial funding cut. While she doesn't expect more cuts, she anticipates there will be further restrictions on how the county administers vaccinations.

  "It may be restricted to the higher-risk population. We don't know for sure. Things do change. The not knowing is what makes it so difficult for budgeting."

  Brooks laments the elimination of such programs as the community nutrition program that taught elementary schoolchildren about nutrition and healthy living.

  "It was a good preventative program to get kids on a healthy start in life," she said, an especially important program in light of the childhood obesity epidemic and the impact that will have on children's health.

  Another eliminated program was the abstinence-plus program that provided middle-school students with information about abstinence, safer behavior and avoiding disease and unwanted pregnancies.

  The emergency preparedness grant was cut by $40,000, resulting in the loss of the pandemic flu preparedness program, Brooks said. "We're still doing planning as part of our general planning, but we lost the specific program."

  With a substantial cut to the tobacco use prevention program, the health department no longer offers local smoking cessation classes, Brooks said. Now people looking for help to quit smoking call 1-800-566-5622 for information.

  However, the department is doing what it can to continue its outreach to schools, businesses and the community to make people more aware of the health hazards to themselves and others of tobacco use, she said.

  Despite a cut to the maternal and child health state grant, money is still available for the program that helps young mothers take better care of themselves while pregnant and to be better parents after giving birth.

  A state-mandated research and education program dealing with sexually transmitted diseases lost all but $5,000 of its funding, she said. The program has been reorganized under the epidemiologist.

  Along with looking to places it can cut or make adjustments, the health department is looking beyond the state for other funding sources to continue services critical to the health of the community, Brooks said.

  Such sources might be foundations and corporations or the federal government, "so we're less reliant on the state. In the good years, the system works well. In the lean years, this is what happens.

  "Already this year, we've received several cuts because the state is still working the budget. We're getting information from people at the state that we may get more cuts and next year will be really bad."

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Joyce Lobeck can be reached at jlobeck@yumasun.com or 539-6853.