OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - County health clinics across Oklahoma are struggling to survive after layoffs by the state Health Department.
The staffing shortage has led some clinics to reduce the number of people they serve and delay visits, the Oklahoman reported.
Clinics saw about 4,800 fewer people than a year ago, according to statistics from April compared to the same time last year. Visits also declined from April 2016 to April 2017, but not nearly as much as they did in the last year.
County health departments statewide conducted about 1,800 fewer visits for family planning, 1,700 fewer for the Women, Infants and Children program, and 1,100 fewer for children’s health. The figures don’t include Oklahoma and Tulsa counties, which have independent clinics.
Brandie Combs oversees health departments in seven counties, including Comanche County, which provided 625 fewer visits than it did April 2017, the largest decline in the state. Combs attributed this year’s decline to the state Health Department’s layoffs in December and March.
The layoffs were intended to reduce the department’s $30 million budget gap. But a grand jury report found the layoffs unnecessary because the department had millions in slush funds.
Five county health departments have no nurses following layoffs, and six don’t have an administrative technician, said Tony Sellars, a department spokesman.
Regions are taking different approaches to manage with a smaller staff, said Keith Reid, who oversees health departments in five counties, including Cleveland County, which had the second-largest decline with 604 fewer visits in April this year.
Reid said the clinics in his region stopped taking walk-in clients to ensure patients wouldn’t wait long only to be turned away.
“Even if we were doing walk-ins, we wouldn’t be able to see the volume we were seeing” before the layoffs, he said.
The region also lost three of the five nurse practitioners who could prescribe contraception and the patient care assistants who often acted as interpreters for Spanish-speaking patients.
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Information from: The Oklahoman, http://www.newsok.com
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