Montrose County Health and Human Services

IMPROVING HEALTH CARE IN BITS AND PIECES

The good news is that not all the news in health care is bad. Physicians and patients alike recognize that our health care system is broken and in need of repair, but there are shining moments in health care. The quality of health care professionals has never been better. The technology available to health care professionals is positively stunning. Generally the complaint about our system is in the delivery of health care services. In the United States we have developed a health care caste system. If you are in the well-insured caste, you have no worries (other than the cost of staying in that caste). If you are in the underinsured caste, you may be at risk for “under-treatment” for a problem, bankruptcy or worse. And if you are in that caste of uninsured and other untouchables, you are even at greater risk for dying prematurely than the members of those other castes.

In spite of that caste system, now and then something happens that will help everyone. In the last several months a vaccine has been brought to market which is effective against the Human Papilloma Virus, or HPV. With Avian Flu, AIDS, Hanta Virus, West Nile Virus and a host of viruses attracting headlines, you may not have lost much sleep worrying about HPV. The virus itself is neither new nor glamorous, so it does not grab many headlines. What HPV does do, however, is cause cervical cancer. The virus is sexually transmitted, and people unfortunate enough to come into contact with the virus may develop an annoying situation called genital warts, or they may develop the more serious problem of cervical cancer. To have a vaccine that prevents cancer is truly a breakthrough. The catch is the vaccine must be given to girls before they become sexually active, and the vaccine is not cheap. Parents of girls in the 9 to 12 age range recommended for receiving the vaccine may find the cost prohibitive. The good news is that Australia and the state of New Hampshire have both decided to provide the vaccine to girls in the correct age range at no cost. As soon as citizens in other states demand to know, “if they can do it, why can't we,” we may begin to see a push for at least enough health care reform to nearly eliminate cervical cancer in the United States .

One of the bright spots in health care available locally is the Colorado Women's Cancer Control Initiative. This program is designed to provide screening for reproductive cancers to women between the ages of 40 and 64 who have not been seen by a health care provider in the last five years and who qualify based on income. The screening, like the vaccines in New Hampshire , is free to women who qualify, so women caught up in the lower end of our health care caste system no longer have this extra worry hanging over them. The brightest part of this bright spot is the way the Montrose community stepped forward to fund the Bosom Buddies program so that women who are screened through the Cancer Control Initiative and need something beyond screening now have access to further help. It is this “do it yourself” success that convinces me the path to the health care reform we want runs right through our grass roots. The outstanding success of the Bosom Buddies program also convinces me that we ordinary citizens would like to eliminate that health care caste system, no matter which caste we represent.