Monday, November 16, 2009

"Please provide us with the date, time, location in which these incidence occurred"

I have written multiple times to our state public health director regarding critical problems in women’s health care in Georgia. I said we must have someone tell us what to do with women who are being denied services in public health. I told her, (in September) “I have spoken to three women in the last week who have called and said the health dept in Floyd, Chattooga and one in Paulding County are all refusing services to women because they have a history of abnormal pap and thus are too 'high risk' (patient's words) to be seen in the health dept. Then, because their paps are not up-to-date, they also cannot get their birth control pills. . .” [I also discussed the impossibility of getting affordable STD services, care for abnormal pap smears or up-to-date contraceptive methods, refusal to care for IUD problems after public health had inserted the IUDs for women, etc.] . . .
Today, the Georgia Family Planning Program Manager writes to me, “In Public Health, we pride ourselves on being able to provide quality care to the customers we serve. If you have received negative feedback from our customers; then we would appreciate the opportunity to make it right. Please provide us with the date, time, location in which these incidence occurred.”
My response: OMG, OMG, OMG—Lynn, there are not enough minutes in the year to document all of these problems and they’ve all been shared with public health already. But, happy reading, this documentation should get you started: Why did we start this clinic? http://alturl.com/uqgy

Do we REALLY have the best system of Healthcare in the world?
Cancer Care in America
http://ringstaff.blogspot.com/2009/10/refusing-services-based-upon-inability.html
http://ringstaff.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-interpretation-series-part-one.html
http://ringstaff.blogspot.com/2009/10/needed-h1n1.html
http://ringstaff.blogspot.com/2009/07/should-pap-smear-cost-so-much.html http://ringstaff.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-far-reaching-is-it-when-our-local.html

http://ringstaff.blogspot.com/2009/06/every-minute-of-every-day.html
http://ringstaff.blogspot.com/2009/06/health-care-reform-matters-for-women.html
http://ringstaff.blogspot.com/2009/06/for-more-local-rome-georgia-health-care.html
http://ringstaff.blogspot.com/2009/06/two-more-stories-from-june-9.html
http://ringstaff.blogspot.com/2009/06/health-care-reform-begins-in-your.html
http://ringstaff.blogspot.com/2009/05/hey-whatever-works.html
http://ringstaff.blogspot.com/2008/10/presented-to-board-of-health-308.html
http://ringstaff.blogspot.com/2008/08/good-bye-teen-plus-it-was-with-extreme.html

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funny to me how the response seems to be taken out of a manual or some protocol booklet, that it is so trained and so disinterested...seems like a nice way to enshroud th blowing of smoke up the butts of those who question.
In Peace,
Amy

Anonymous said...

Perhaps there should be some sort of complaint form for women who have been slighted by the public health departments. Included on the form could be a nice, neat place for date, time, and location. These could all be faxed, mailed, or better, hand delivered to this person to answer her stupid request.

Marilyn said...

For sure. Public health has many years of smoke blowing practice-we can only hope that the current economy -and a state full of pissed off women--will finally shed light on the problems.