The Randolph County Health Department will be ending its home care health program. Public information officer Chelsea Zabski said the decision to end the program was made because there are plenty of other home health care providers in the county.
“There are 11 other home health providers in the county that serve clients,” Zabski said. “So, by closing this program, we will be able to move some of our focus more on the other gaps in the community.”
Letters were sent to the current clients of the Randolph County home health care program with referrals for other sources of home health care services in the area. Zabski said in the end, changes in cost will depend on a client’s insurance, but the effects should not be drastic.
“Most of the people that we were seeing shouldn't see an increase in cost because there was no cost to them through Medicare and the VA,” Zabski said.
Once the program ends on Oct. 13, the health department will then have more resources to focus on other community health concerns. Plenty of concerns were brought to the health department’s attention with their 2016 community health needs assessment. There are three main health ideas and services the department will now focus on.
“Those three needs are improving community health education, increasing access to mental health services and reducing the mental health stigma and promoting smoking cessation,” Zabski said.
The county will most likely focus on improvements to mental health services. Zabski said once mental health providers are more educated and mental health resources are more readily accessible to people, the Randolph County Health Department hopes to begin a mental health stigma reducing campaign and get people to understand and utilize the services.