My time with Americorps and Neighborcare is winding down. With the unofficial start of summer, Memorial Day, behind us, I now look to my future with a hodgepodge of feelings and new adventures.
The Dental Integration project, the brain child of my Americorps service, is going smoothly. We are even considering using this model to contact other patient populations, such as diabetics, overdue mammogram patients, annual exams and pap patient reminders. Shifting these responsibilities from medical and dental providers to administrative staff will greatly affect the productivity of our providers. Although admin staff will have more work...
Speaking of productivity, a new project our organization is attempting is increased productivity, measured in terms of patients visits per day per provider. This is essential considering the major budget cuts that just happened both in Olympia and Washington DC. We must increase the number of patients per providers because a) we are seeing more and more patients, b)we get reimbursed and paid for patients who have appointments with a provider, not a nurse or counselor and c) because we can't really afford to hire new providers to make up for the increased patient load. When I think of the word "productivity," I think of factories; the mass production of goods. I don't think of it in terms of check ups and pap smears, but alas, the medical system is a business afterall. While we are in the business of healing and caring from a non-profit standpoint, there are rent and utilities to pay, employees have to eat and feed their families.
With my Americorps service just about done. I'm looking ahead to my future and I don't think the community health field is for me. I have grown fond of the compassionate people and philosophy behind community health centers; the idea of community-based health and making quality services accesible to immigrants, low-income families and other indigent gourps, but it's emotionally exhausting. With the current budget situation and the current political idealogies that threaten medical services for low-income families, it's heart wrenching to know that with every million dollars cut from social and health service programs, thousand of people will have a lower quality of life. We hear about it all the time in the news, but now, these numbers have faces and the impact is felt on a personal level.
I strongly believe with all my heart that access to health care is a right and essential to improving the quality of life of all immigrants, low-income families and minority groups. And I'm a fighter: I have strong morals and I will fight for them. But I'm exhausted and the community health center movement is fighting a losing battle. A battle where only our patients, who are amongst the neediest of our community, are the ones affected.
You think the suits down in Olympia know first hand what it means to cut health services funding? They are not on the battlefield, day in and day out, watching struggling families make ends meet, desperately looking for jobs and trying to feed their kids. And while in this clinic, in this building, we can only really help with their medical woes, perceived health is so intricately woven with self-worth, motivation, perseverance and other psychological and spiritual attributes that allow individuals to not just live, but THRIVE.
But I guess it's difficult for anyone to thrive in this economic climate. College students, small business owners,recently unemployed breadwinners: it's hard enough to get by, let alone get ahead.
A Washington Service Corpse
I am an Americorps volunteer at Neighborcare Health, a community health organization based in Seattle. After having relocated from Calfornia to Seattle to pursue a career in public health, I'm overworked and underpaid but livin' it up the Americorps way.
*The opinions on this blog do not reflect that of Americorps, Washington Service Corps or Neighborcare Health. Just Samantha's :)*
*The opinions on this blog do not reflect that of Americorps, Washington Service Corps or Neighborcare Health. Just Samantha's :)*
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Stand with Planned Parenthood...uh, can't I just sit?
Planned Parenthood is the largest reproductive health care organization in the United States and is now on the Federal funding chopping block. Now before we jump to conclusions, let's look at the facts about the services PP actually provides.
Percent of total services:
35% contraception
34% STI/STD testing and treatment
17% cancer testing and screening
10% other women's health procedures, including pregnancy, prenatal, midlife, and infertility
2% to 3% abortion or abortion-related
We may now resume our jumps to conclusions.
PP is an easy target because they publically advocate for reproductive rights. But when less that 3 percent of what they do is actually abortions, this is more a demonstration of newly acquired power by House Republicans rather than actual progress for pro-life advocates. Clearly the issue in cutting Federal support is abortion rights, not the budget. PP received $349.6 million from Federal funding in 2008, and that amount is merely a drop in the bucket when our current deficit is in the trillions.
So why bring up abortion rights now? We have record high rates of unemployment, families are consistently losing their businesses and homes, higher education costs are going much higher and while we are told that things are improving, there seems to be no end to the all the struggles Americans are facing. Abortion is the go-to topic to distract from the more important issues, such as the game of hide-and-go-seek the Democrats in Wisconsin are playing or the little to no impact on military spending in our massive budget crisis. But here's the thing: just because abortion gets used as the shiny object flashing in your eyes doesn't mean it isn't important to discuss. It's just not important to discuss at this time and in this political climate.
Isn't it funny that the whole issue around Planned Parenthood is protecting babies but that all too easily we tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater?Cutting all funding to PP because 3% of their services is in providing abortion resources is unfair, especially considering that no government money directly funds said abortions. Yeah, PP accepts Federal grants given the stipulation that none of that money goes towards abortions and yet here we are trying to pull all Federal funding. Abortions are funded by private donors and for-fee services, so it's difficult to understand why people keep screaming that the government is funding abortions. I guess, in a way, it is indirectly...
Abortions are a topic that make me very uncomfortable. I can speak freely and openly about a lot of things, but abortion is one thing I can't speak objectively about. It is very much a personal values issue and our religious and spiritual views are deeply intertwined into ideas of family and respect for life. As a practicing Catholic who embraces and respects the right to life, I cannot condone nor support the act of killing an embryo. However, the reality is that not everyone in the US is a practicing Catholic who respects life, and to push my values strictly influenced by religon onto others is unreasonable. I may hold religious values and this country may have been founded by religious values, but we are secularized government. Proposing legislation based on religious beliefs *cough*PROP 8*cough*DOMA*cough* should have no place in our country, as it represents a form of religious oppression.
That last paragraph looks good in print, but more difficult to do in real life. Since the proposed funding cuts to PP, there have been advocates petitioning and accepting donations for PP at various street corners and businesses throughout Seattle, and everytime I am approached by them I blow them off. Hell no am I going to sign that! They kill babies! I think to myself as I walk past them. It's one thing to say you support a secularized government, and quite another to get me to donate, volunteer and sign petitions to keep PP in business.
So where exactly do I stand on this issue? Well, I can't necessarily stand with PP, but I could just sit. Sit and hope that funding will be restored and those who are morally unopposed to abortions will continue to receive the necessary services they wish to obtain. I will sit and hope that birth control will be available to all those men and women who need them, thereby preventing the need to consider an abortion. I will sit and hope that people who need reproductive cancer screenings and STI tests will continue to get them. But that's all I am willing to do for Planned Parenthood.
Percent of total services:
35% contraception
34% STI/STD testing and treatment
17% cancer testing and screening
10% other women's health procedures, including pregnancy, prenatal, midlife, and infertility
2% to 3% abortion or abortion-related
We may now resume our jumps to conclusions.
PP is an easy target because they publically advocate for reproductive rights. But when less that 3 percent of what they do is actually abortions, this is more a demonstration of newly acquired power by House Republicans rather than actual progress for pro-life advocates. Clearly the issue in cutting Federal support is abortion rights, not the budget. PP received $349.6 million from Federal funding in 2008, and that amount is merely a drop in the bucket when our current deficit is in the trillions.
So why bring up abortion rights now? We have record high rates of unemployment, families are consistently losing their businesses and homes, higher education costs are going much higher and while we are told that things are improving, there seems to be no end to the all the struggles Americans are facing. Abortion is the go-to topic to distract from the more important issues, such as the game of hide-and-go-seek the Democrats in Wisconsin are playing or the little to no impact on military spending in our massive budget crisis. But here's the thing: just because abortion gets used as the shiny object flashing in your eyes doesn't mean it isn't important to discuss. It's just not important to discuss at this time and in this political climate.
Isn't it funny that the whole issue around Planned Parenthood is protecting babies but that all too easily we tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater?Cutting all funding to PP because 3% of their services is in providing abortion resources is unfair, especially considering that no government money directly funds said abortions. Yeah, PP accepts Federal grants given the stipulation that none of that money goes towards abortions and yet here we are trying to pull all Federal funding. Abortions are funded by private donors and for-fee services, so it's difficult to understand why people keep screaming that the government is funding abortions. I guess, in a way, it is indirectly...
Abortions are a topic that make me very uncomfortable. I can speak freely and openly about a lot of things, but abortion is one thing I can't speak objectively about. It is very much a personal values issue and our religious and spiritual views are deeply intertwined into ideas of family and respect for life. As a practicing Catholic who embraces and respects the right to life, I cannot condone nor support the act of killing an embryo. However, the reality is that not everyone in the US is a practicing Catholic who respects life, and to push my values strictly influenced by religon onto others is unreasonable. I may hold religious values and this country may have been founded by religious values, but we are secularized government. Proposing legislation based on religious beliefs *cough*PROP 8*cough*DOMA*cough* should have no place in our country, as it represents a form of religious oppression.
That last paragraph looks good in print, but more difficult to do in real life. Since the proposed funding cuts to PP, there have been advocates petitioning and accepting donations for PP at various street corners and businesses throughout Seattle, and everytime I am approached by them I blow them off. Hell no am I going to sign that! They kill babies! I think to myself as I walk past them. It's one thing to say you support a secularized government, and quite another to get me to donate, volunteer and sign petitions to keep PP in business.
So where exactly do I stand on this issue? Well, I can't necessarily stand with PP, but I could just sit. Sit and hope that funding will be restored and those who are morally unopposed to abortions will continue to receive the necessary services they wish to obtain. I will sit and hope that birth control will be available to all those men and women who need them, thereby preventing the need to consider an abortion. I will sit and hope that people who need reproductive cancer screenings and STI tests will continue to get them. But that's all I am willing to do for Planned Parenthood.
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