Health Care reform begins in your hometown

Health Care reform begins in your hometown. Lack of health insurance affects everyone, but as unemployment rates rise faster among women than men (Labor Dep’t stats 5/09) women will increasingly bear the burdens and problems associated with lack of healthcare. We at Women of W.O.R.T.H. urge the women of Rome to send us their health care stories and join us at the clinic today, Saturday, June 6 from 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM, 1513 Dean St. for discussion on Health Care Organizing Kickoff, a main event will be at the end of June. I will continue to document here the problems in Rome that I am seeing daily.

Yesterday, a woman walked in to our women’s clinic after reading our article in the Rome Newswire. She needs to know how to budget for a Pap smear since she hasn’t had one since 2000- the year she lost her insurance. She also needs a mammogram and a colonoscopy- a parent died early from colon cancer and she is unable to get her screening colonoscopy because she is uninsured. She has had two recent injuries which she had to ‘doctor’ herself rather than getting stitches because she cannot afford an E.R. visit.
Another miserable woman came in for a gyn problem who also had a very painful dental abscess which was making it hard to talk. Two months ago she had a similar problem and couldn’t afford the dental work and had to have the tooth pulled. She has a $400.00 bill from that experience which she is having trouble paying and today she is going to loan companies trying to find money to get her current abscess taken care of. She works full-time in the health care field but her employer does not offer health insurance.
Another woman called from Carroll County, she has an IUD that she needs to have removed and her local health dept. won’t remove it. She’s called the local ob/gyns and she is getting prices quoted for around $1,000 for her visit. This is a procedure that costs an office next to nothing and takes about 5 minutes to perform. She’ll come up to see us next week.Please join us tonight or e-mail your stories to us, watch for further updates on this site.