Editor's Note: This is part 7 of a multi-part series. This article covers healthcare presentations—Grant County Community Health Council and LifeQuest.
By Mary Alice Murphy
Chris DeBolt, Grant County Community Health Council coordinator, presented for the group.
"The Health Council has 26 members, with a wide variety of expertise," DeBolt said. "Many are in the room. We have leveraged $2.4 million in four years for the community. That's a ratio of $24 to the community for every $1 invested in the council."
She said she served on the Health Council, as the rural representative. "I have been in this job as coordinator for 10 months."
"Our priorities came as a result of 5,055 responses in the survey we held in 2012," DeBolt said. "The priorities are behavioral health, family resiliency, community health and safety and interpersonal violence.
"We have direct partnerships with Gila Regional Medical Center Program Development and the Youth Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition, for which we provide office space," she continued. "For behavioral health, we are partnering with the proposed continuum of care for substance abuse."
She noted that GRMC has been the operational funder since the state stopped funding health councils, and "we are most appreciative of the support."
"In the family resiliency priority, we have two programs, one addressing early childhood, and we are partnering with the Community Partnership for Children," DeBolt said. "We have supported the partnership's Community Investment Fund application. We have a shared-services model.
"Under family resiliency, we also are working on programs for seniors," she continued. "The Senior Life Cycle provides a caregiver class for those dealing with dementia and Alzheimer's care. We will offer it again, as it was quite well attended."
In community health and safety, members of the Health Council are working with the Disabilities Advisory Council, which, in not too long a time, will have a Disabilities Resource Center next to the town's Recreation Center.
"In interpersonal violence, we address sexual assault, bullying and others," DeBolt said. "We have had the support of the hospital, we work with Sexual Assault Support Services, and we get grants.
She said the Grant County Community Health Council has been very effective in helping develop sustainable programs, such as First Born, which now has programs in several counties in the state.
"Last year, a bill was passed for funding health councils for $900,000 to be divided among the councils, giving each $50,000 in needed funding, but it was line-item vetoed," DeBolt said. " We hope you will support the bill again. We show what health councils can do and accomplish across the state."
"What have you done with the $2.4 million?" Sen Howie Morales asked
"Those dollars have funded all the programs on page two of the handout, which included the Non-Profit Resource Conference, Community Resource and Senior Directories, 101 Things for Youth to do in Grant County, Red Hot Children's Fiesta, Town Hall meetings by YSAPC, Mimbers Health Fair, Community Investment Fund training and PSA screening," DeBolt said.
"Other health councils are not as effective and accountable as you are," Morales remarked.
"When health councils were defunded five years ago, many unraveled," DeBolt said. "There are still a few functioning. Doña Ana's is starting to come back, and we want them all to be able to be what the Maternal and Childcare Act envisioned when we began 24 years ago."
She said Rep. Don Tripp was going to carry the bill, but now that he has been selected as the House Speaker-elect, he's trying to find someone else to carry it.
"I think it will be endorsed by Health and Human Resources," Morales said.
"Tripp won't be carrying it?" Representative-elect John Zimmerman asked.
"From what I understand, he would feel more comfortable with someone else carrying it," DeBolt said.
"None of us knows which communities have health councils," Zimmerman said.
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Director Evangeline Zamora and Shawna Avila represented LifeQuest.
"We have two programs—early intervention for ages birth to three years old, which is funded under FIT, and the adult program, which is funded by the DD-waiver and the General Fund," Zamora said. "We have faced major cutbacks in funding."
Avila noted that she provide contracted provider services to LifeQuest in Catron County.
"I first got to know LifeQuest after our daughter had a long stay in neonatal and came out with developmental disabilities," Avila said. "She is still getting developmental and physical therapy.
"Catron County is the largest county in land size in the state," she explained. "We sometimes have to drive for hours to get to a house. People have trouble getting to doctors' appointments and to church. I know because my mother is one of two doctors in the county. The county also has a high poverty rate—the fourth highest in the state for children."
The FIT (Family, Infant and Toddler) program provides in-home services.
"Physical abuse is also a problem in the county," Avila said. "The county has a suicide rate two-and-a-half times the New Mexico rate; for teens it's 7 times the New Mexico rate.
"The county also has the lowest rate of prenatal care and 25 percent of the people are uninsured or underinsured," she continued.
She also pointed out that a lot of professionals are not willing to travel the long distances required." We need more funding for travel. The language needs to be changed."
Avila noted that the programs have a cost benefit. For every $1 spent on early childhood, it saves up to $17 in later costs, such as law enforcement.
"I have a cousin who is developmentally delayed," Rep. Dianne Hamilton said. "She is now 78 and lives alone, but she received early care. Any time there is early intervention, it saves a child from later problems.
"We serve birth to three years with our services," Zamora said. "We can go up to kindergarten and into school."
"I know how important your services are," Morales said.
"With the $500,000 in FIT funding, we were gratified to provide a raise in hourly rates," Zamora said. "We are still looking for funding, because the state has a shortage of $9 million in the program. We are still trying to fully operate. In rural areas, we are more impacted."
"If you don't have providers, you can't meet the needs of children," Morales said. "I see you have a lot of openings."
"We regularly lose therapists to the schools and the hospital, because they pay more and offer better benefits," Zamora said. "We have a speech pathologist and therapists, but we can lose them. The DD waiver will be retroactive to July."
"I have a concern about openings," Morales said. "It's similar to other areas. It took so much effort to get people off the waiting list, but you need providers."
Zamora said agencies, because of funding, are having problems staying open. "We here in Grant County get support from Freeport McMoRan. Those that continue to get community support can keep going. We put in a Community Investment Fund application for landscaping work."
Zimmerman asked her if she knew about the new D.O. program at New Mexico State University, which is targeted at rural areas.
Note: This article is taken directly from a transcript this writer is paid to deliver to the Prospectors each year for them to put the differently formatted information into the legislators' notebooks to be used during the legislative session and throughout the year.