Maternal child health services under question

With changes coming to maternal child health services, the Jasper County Health Department along with the Jasper County Board of Health have decisions to make. JCHD Administrator Becky Pryor laid out potential plans to the board on Thursday for the services once Marion County takes over the contract on Oct. 1.

The services are focused on pregnant woman, infants and children and include nursing visits, oral health, developmental screens and hearing and vision screenings among many others. Pryor gave an example to the board of the potential the program could have.

“Let’s say I have a six-month-old that I am going to see and they come into the office to get immunizations. We would do those, developmental screens on the child and postpartum depression screens on the mom because you start tabulating up how much you can charge (for additional services) and you can charge a lot for that one visit,” Pryor said. “You try to do as much as you could for the people you are seeing.”

JCHD would be reimbursed for the services by Marion County. Pryor said should Jasper County not take on the program, services in the county through the program would shrink.

“If we decide not to do it they will only do basic services in Jasper County. They would go to WIC, provide some services there, other than that they did not plan to expand services here,” Pryor said.

The board requested additional information about program such as what services are being provided by other agencies in the county and which services would be dropped or greatly reduced if the no action was taken by JCHD.

“It is definitely food for thought. I think we need more services in our county, it is figuring out how are we going to do this and make it happen. Also, how are we going to afford it,” Pryor said. “It just depends, do we want to be the maternal and child health provider or do we not? I think we have to evaluate all of the services but I see a lot of need in Jasper County.”

Pryor also announced that Brenda Steenhoek was hired as the new Home Care Manager. Steenhoek is a former homecare nurse from Catholic Health Initiatives, formerly Skiff Homecare and has also previously worked in public health.

“She is very well-rounded, she know a lot of our clients already because she has shared clients with them previously. We look forward to getting her here and started,” Pryor said.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com