Quality rural health care high on Jenkins' priority list
Providing Kansans in rural areas with adequate access to good health care services remains a high priority for Lynn Jenkins, the Congresswoman and Holton native said during a Thursday afternoon visit to Medical Pharmacy.
While Jenkins said it was “inspirational to see the great work being done” on her two-day tour of hospitals and health care centers in eastern Kansas on Wednesday and Thursday, having access to health care remains a concern for Kansans in sparsely populated areas. It’s a concern she said she plans to emphasize when she goes back for Congress’ fall session, which starts Tuesday, Sept. 8.
“Kansans want access to good health care, whether it’s keeping emergency rooms open in some of these rural communities or keeping the local, community-owned pharmacy open — that’s probably the most consistent message I’ve heard on this tour,” Jenkins said after her visit with pharmacist Joe Gilliland and his staff.
It’s a concern echoed by Gilliland, who noted that the rural makeup of Kansas makes it difficult for the state’s residents to have adequate access to good health care facilities. Driving this point home, he said, is that “seven or eight counties in Kansas” do not have a pharmacy.
“Most of our population is around Kansas City, Topeka, and Wichita — probably about 70 percent,” Gilliland said. “But the other 30 percent are just as important.”
Taking care of that 30 percent, Jenkins said, makes it even more urgent to “balance limited resources with meeting people’s needs.”
“Some of these rural communities are really small, and if their emergency room closes, in the case of an emergency, 30 to 60 miles to the nearest emergency room could be life or death,” she said. “We need to be able to provide adequate quality care for all Americans, not just those who live in urban areas.”
That concern and others picked up on the two-day tour will be taken back to Washington for the fall session of Congress, although she noted lawmakers would have “a small window before the presidential campaigning takes off in earnest” next year to introduce new legislation.
“We’ll have a lot on our agenda, a lot of important issues that need to be addressed,” she said. “So I’m glad we’ve had this time in August to spend with our constituents to find out what their priorities are and what their needs are. That helps us focus when we get back in September.”
Rural health care in Kansas has been a primary issue for Jenkins during this year’s Congressional sessions, and she has been involved with the introduction of a handful of bills with the aim of improving health care this year, it was reported.
