UMC Hosts State Lawmakers from Across US to Discuss Common Health Disparities

Several out of state lawmakers are visiting UMC to discuss public health issues.

As the national debate on health care continues, a small group of legislators from poor districts around the country have come to Mississippi to discuss ways to eliminate common health disparities in their communities. MPB's Lawayne Childrey reports.

This week state legislators from as far away as New York and Kansas are touring Mississippi's largest hospital and comparing notes on everything from obesity to heart disease. At University Medical Center Wednesday, Senator Hillman Frazier of Jackson said one of the most pressing issues is inadequate access to health care.

“It’s very important ‘cause we have a lot of our people living in rural areas, and they don’t have access to top physicians. They have to drive miles and miles to get basic health care. So it’s very good that we have programs in place to first of all recruit and train doctors and send them to these areas so that they can serve un served populations.”

The problem of access to health care is not limited to just rural areas. New York assemblyman Jonathan Bing says in his district he has found a way to bridge the restraints of time and income that may keep people away from a doctor’s visit.

“Literally bringing mobile mammography vans to communities where people aren’t getting mammograms and saying here it is, you just have to walk outside your door to get a mammogram. Bringing mobile dental vans to my communities so that children who don’t have access to adequate dental care can literally walk outside their door and have their parents bring them there and they’ll get an access to a dental screening that they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Closer to home, Alabama and Mississippi have long been considered twins because they lead the nation in many of the same medical problems. Alabama House member Thomas Jackson says unfortunately that includes the lack of diabetes education.

“And what we have discovered in Alabama and what is happening in Mississippi as well is that we are leading in having limbs amputated rather than having real medication and education given to us so we can better treat ourselves and don’t get to the final stages of death.”

Jackson is calling for legislation in his state to force insurance companies to offer free education classes to the public on how to protect yourself from deadly diseases. For MPB News, I'm Lawayne Childrey.