Important health issues to you/your community?

Lack of access to care

  • Need more access to health care places (doctors and dentists)
  • No dental care help or coverage from Medicare
  • Restrictions on Medications-dosage and how much you can receive during a time limit
  • Poor healthcare coverage
  • One woman said, “you’re not old enough to qualify for Medicare but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid.”
  • Much agreement and complaints about the Medicaid “Gap” in our state and how it is difficult to qualify for assistance and this “middle zone” (as one woman called it)
  • Many raised questions of wanting to know why we are not expanding healthcare coverage in our state
  • People need more access to mental health care, especially those who don’t have insurance or have high deductibles

Access to services

  • Without minor children you can’t get help or qualify for assistance
  • Access to vaccinations; one woman mentioned that they will go to the schools to provide vaccinations (she did not specify who “they” are)
  • Concern about services provided in the community and assistance opportunities that are not marketed or promoted well so the community is not aware
  • Concern for senior citizen care and programs
  • Needs for homeless youth need to be addressed
  • Not enough funding for programs like Planned Parenthood and the Health Department

Specific health issues

  • Diabetes
  • Pain management [specific issues with pain management is doctors not taking you seriously if on assistance; feelings of discrimination; pain treated differently because patient is using Medicaid or any other assistance]
  • Asthma in children
  • Children getting “sickness of the skin” in school
  • Grandparents raising their grandchildren and the toll it takes on their health
  • Obesity: children not as healthy as before or as healthy as they should be

Issues/problems with local health care

  • Feelings of having to advocate for self and Doctors treating you like you “just want drugs” or not really in pain
  • Lack of access to pain medication
  • In regards to Midtown clinic some felt they have been treated well and expressed gratitude for the services; however, more than one participant referred to the difficulty getting to speak with a doctor over the phone or simple questions answered
  • Discussion of Midtown clinic and other clinics for low income and assistance programs, one said they are always “booked” and take too long for immediate health needs.

Issues/problems with local services

  • Concern about bed bugs at the local homeless shelter
  • Services for health education and resources not well communicated or promoted and therefore under utilized

Health habits

  • Discussion on concern with E-Cigarettes and the increase of them, many raised the question of not knowing what kind of a risk they are to them second hand
  • E-Cigarettes: kids curious about them, kids being targeted; one man said “my children are fascinated by them”
  • Underage drinking and prescription pill misuse and abuse
  • Substances and drugs easy to access; especially for youth in public schools
  • People not coming to get tested for things like STI/D’s, ie: HIV; and concerns with teen pregnancy
  • Not enough time to exercise or walk because have to work all the time, no time to get out and take care of self
  • Going outside more; kids with technology not going outside
  • Not having enough time as a parent to take kids outside or be outside with them to play outside
  • Sedentary children: overweight/obesity