TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Members of the Stillman College community, along with residents and healthcare providers from West Alabama, took time to gather Friday, Dec. 6 for a 90-minute town hall on the challenges facing rural healthcare in Alabama.
Following a welcome by Dr. Yolanda Page, Stillman College’s eighth president, the town hall began with a discussion between Longevity Project chairman Ken Stone and Dr. Amber N. Clark Brown, a medical director from the Alabama Department of Public Health.
Brown shared statistics that 43% of Alabamians reside in rural communities, and 7% of Alabama counties do not have a hospital. Another impact Alabama rural families are facing is 28% of women in Alabama do not live within 30 minutes of a hospital that provides labor and delivery care for birth. Brown, who serves as medical director for the Alabama Bureaus of Health Provider Standards, Home and Community Services also spoke to some solutions provided by county health departments to receive telehealth access to care, but also highlighted Alabama’s need for broadband access in rural Alabama to make telehealth an option.
The second half of the event included a panel discussion led by Stillman College trustee Dr. Jean Accius, CEO of Creating Healthier Communities (CHC). The panel included Melissa Bishop-Murphy, senior director of government relations at Pfizer and a Stillman College trustee, Dr. Anathbandhu Chaudhuri, Stillman College associate professor of biology and cancer researcher, and Dr. John Dorsey, founder of Project Horseshoe Farm.
“This is not where it ends and the conversation doesn’t stop. We have a collective opportunity to think about how we are going to ensure that every community has access to care,” Accius said. “This really highlights the importance of partnerships and role colleges like Stillman can play in bringing different stakeholders together – whether it’s providers, whether it’s business leaders, whether it’s industry leaders, whether it’s non-profits, whether it’s local government – to really think about how we can collaborate collectively to really address the needs of our communities in a meaningful way.”
Bishop-Murphy likened the rural health care movement to the Civil Rights movement, recognizing Stillman College’s role in sparking change with race relations in West Alabama.
“If you think about it, the Civil Rights movement started with the committed few, and it grew. I see this as a civil rights issue. I think we have the basis for having a change. It’s not going to start with the big systems. In a week, we’re not going to change the Medicaid / Medicare systems, we’re not going to change particular private healthcare insurers, but we can make the difference from a grass roots level,” she said.
During the panel discussion, Dr. Dorsey shared how Project Horseshoe Farm provides a community health gap year fellowship to students, who focus on meeting people where they are, providing in-home follow ups, ensuring people have proper housing and engaging in community center programs. Dorsey also spoke to loneliness being a healthcare issue needing to be resolved.
Like Dorsey, Dr. Chaudhuri said his hope for change is what he sees in his Stillman College students. All spoke to the need of empowering the younger generation to provide healthier communities in the future, by educating healthier choices beginning at K-12.
To learn more about the organizations that participated in the town hall, visit the links below.
Creating Healthier Communities – chcimpact.org
Longevity Project – longevity-project.com
Project Horseshoe Farm – projecthsf.org
