| Health Care
District Makes Good on Promise of Change
In the midst of a
growing economic crisis, I write today to offer at least one piece
of good news as Thanksgiving and the Christmas holiday season come
upon us: many people who might have suffered needlessly will have
their health-related needs met, thanks to the ability of the Mt.
Diablo Health Care District and John Muir Health to respond
effectively to adversity.
Five short months
ago, in the wake of a recommendation that the Health Care District
(on which I serve) be dissolved, I was compelled to offer a solution
to the many problems facing the district board. I presented that
solution to the Contra Costa Times readership in a piece that: 1)
acknowledged past mistakes, but argued that the District is uniquely
positioned to improve the health of people in Concord, Martinez,
Pleasant Hill, and portions of Lafayette; 2) described an innovative
public-partnership with John Muir Health that created a new grant
making program for achieving our mission; 3) publicly challenged
myself and my colleagues to make significant steps toward addressing
unmet health needs and, if we did not, to consider dissolution.
I believe the
grants we have issued since then are a powerful rejoinder to those
who doubted the District could change direction and revitalize our
63-year-old mission. Using the county's leading health indicators as
our guide, we have successfully distributed $225,000 of the $270,600
to address essential health needs.
- To address the
diverse concerns of our rapidly growing senior population, we
issued a series of grants. Senior Helpline Services, which
operates two successful programs – phone-a-friend and
transportation services – received $25,000 to continue operating
its programs. The Monument Crisis Center received $40,000 to
distribute food and run recreational services that address both
the physical and mental health of low-income seniors. Hospice of
the East Bay received $10,000 to create an emergency fund for
when its clients face a short-term financial crisis that
prevents them from doing such things as purchasing food and
prescriptions, or getting a ride to their doctor's appointment.
Rehabilitation Services of Northern California received a
$20,000 "bridge grant" so that low-income seniors who were
relying on a county-run mental health program slated to close
would not fall through the cracks while the state assumed the
reins of the program. Finally, we gave $5,000 to Jewish
Federation, Inc. to run a training program for anyone providing
care to a family member or friend with Alzheimer's disease or
dementia.
- To help
prevent and treat various types of cancer that afflict women, we
provided $50,000 to La Clínica de la Raza.
- To improve
dental care among underserved populations, we provided $15,000
to Jewish Family and Children's Services of the East Bay. This
grant will create a bilingual dental education and prevention
program to help non-English speakers find affordable,
linguistically competent dental care.
- During a
nationwide nursing shortage, we used $46,000 to create the R.
Isabelle Chenoweth, RN, endowed nursing scholarship at
California State University East Bay. The scholarship will
support students from the district who want to attend the
nursing program housed at Cal State's Concord campus.
- Finally, we
used $14,000 to purchase five automated emergency
defibrillators, which will be donated within our district to
public entities with a high rate of at-risk populations.
- The remaining
$45,600 was unable to be distributed because hopeful applicants
did not meet our criteria requiring a 501(c) 3 corporation,
affiliation to healthcare, or fell outside our district
boundaries.
At the very least,
these grants demonstrate that the District has begun to right our
ship. More importantly, however, without an elected health care
district with a clearly defined mission like ours, the funding we
are providing would disappear back into the general fund, with no
guarantee that it would ever become available to meet these vital
health concerns. In these difficult economic times, the loss of this
funding would be especially devastating.
With that in mind,
these initial rounds of grants are only a beginning. We take
seriously our need to continue serving the community in concrete
ways and urge any organization that thinks it can help address
critical health needs in our district to apply during our next round
of grantmaking, which begins early next year.
Dr. John R. Toth is Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Mt.
Diablo Health Care District |
