If you have ever lived in a city or an urban area, you will find very often that you will have access to pretty much anything you need. Not only will you have access to the things you need, you will probably have multiple options to choose.
But what does it mean when you live in a rural area and your options are fairly limited?
When I used to practice law, I practiced in a rural area. Not only was it rural but the nearest major city was about 35 miles away.
One of the things that I did when I was practicing law was that I wanted to go to the places where my clients received their treatment. At the time I was practicing, most of the people that I represented relied heavily on Community Health services or various State or County health departments.
These Community Health provides for Physical and Mental Health care are the life blood of many communities.
However, these resources can be limited.
Access to Community Healthcare can be challenging. And treatment for more specialized care can be even more difficult.
In 2018 Health Centers Report, Health Centers Program collectively delivers care to more than 27 million patients in more than 10,000 predominantly low income communities. And a huge number of these centers have clinical vacancies with 69% reporting vacancies for Family Physicians, 50% reporting vacancies for Nurse Practitioners and 48% reporting vacancies for Medical Assistants https://www.graham-center.org/publications-reports/publications/one-pagers/health-centers-recruitment-2018.html
And while staffing shortages are important, the logistics of accessing care sometimes is overlooked.
For instance, I found that there were people who had difficulty getting to specific Health Centers due to lack of Mass Transit. As such, if you don’t have any family members or friends who can travel to take you to where you need to go, getting the treatment that you need can sometimes be just as hard as getting the treatment itself.
The other thing I found was that county services are sometimes geographically restricted. In other words, imagine if you were in a situation where you live in one county but the nearest provider is in the neighboring county. So you would be able to access closest to you. Unfortunately, you may not be able to receive services from that provider because you are geographically located in a different county. So now you have to haggle between the place that is closest to you but you can not access because of your address and the place they can provide your services that is further away and more difficult to access.
And these struggles are real even when there is a push to expand services. In light of the recent tragedies, Senator Roy Bunt and Senator Debbie Stabbenow are calling on lawmakers to expand Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics nationwide. Congress has also appropriated grant funding since 2018 to support these Health Clinics. As noted by the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, the funding has led to more than 430 CCBHCs currently operating in 42 states and the District of Columbia and Guam. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3507788-senators-push-for-expansion-of-community-mental-health-clinics/
While providing more money and resources is great, we have to remember where these populations are located. You have to find the person where they are and recognize what it takes for them to be able to get access to the care that they need. Providing more money to an established place that still doesn’t have immediate access to the population that it is trying to serve may not necessarily help the problem
So when trying to focus on providing services and access to services to people in need, it is important that we not only focus on providing the resources to provide for more therapists more counselors more doctors and more nurses. But it is also important that we take a hard look on how we can increase providing a greater support system so they can actually get access to the treatment they need.
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