Houston County Health Department– More than immunizations

Chris Sikes, RN, county nurse manager at the Houston County Health Department, knew a good while ago where she wanted to work.

“I’m on my 14th year with health department,” she said. “I love it. I don’t think I would know how to do anything else.”

Sikes said her career grew out of desires to teach and serve.

“I really wanted an opportunity to teach,” she said, “and I wanted to serve Houston County. I really wanted a chance to develop personal relationships with patients and expand on the ability to teach. And once I found public health, I loved it and have never left.”

The department, on Cohen Walker Drive in Warner Robins, is apparently a well-kept secret, she said.

“We offer services that many people have no idea about, and one of our biggest services is women’s health,” she said.

Among the services offered are screenings, Pap smears, annual breast exams, and mammogram referrals when age appropriate.

“Often we can pay for that for them, and if there is an abnormal Pap smear we do a follow-up on that,” she said. “We can discuss and provide methods of birth control that’s tailored to each woman’s needs and desires.”

The department provides education and nutritional counseling, and there are plans to hire a nutritionist.

A large portion of their services deals with child bearing and women’s reproductive life.

“We have program called Nurse Family Partnership, that’s a home visiting program, and we’re the only one in the state that has one,” she said. “It’s grant funded and it helps women who are pregnant for the very first time and who are lower income.”

Women are assigned to a registered nurse and that nurse stays with them until the baby turns 2 years old. There is no fee in the program; the mother just has to meet an income level and be a first-time mother. The nurse is the patient’s support program through the pregnancy and until the baby is 2 years old. The partnership does immunizations, financial literacy training, and it teaches the mother CPR.

“It’s just whatever that mom needs; they’re there for the mom,” Sikes said.

Sikes has a talent staff helping her at the department, including Dr. Eva Martin, an obstetrician and gynecologist. A lot of her work is targeting low-income mothers and immigrant mothers during her twice-monthly visits.

“We do contraceptive treatment, what we call long-acting reversible treatments. They’re long-acting so that if a woman doesn’t want to have children for three to five or three to 12 years, we can put in the system of their choice so they don’t have to worry about an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy,” Martin said. “And the Department of Health has some really good, very financially forward concepts for teens to be able to get on good birth control to get them through school.”

The department is preparing to start a prenatal clinic in May with Martin heavily involved.

“It’ll be a joint-managed program, targeting women who don’t have access to any other health insurance that will cover their pregnancy,” Martin said. “Maybe their immigration status makes it very difficult to get insurance. We’ll see them for about 36 weeks and then Dr. Alison Wright’s practice has agreed to take over their care and delivery. So we’re able to provide low-cost prenatal care for them because many of them don’t see a doctor at all until it’s time for delivery. We think that by caring for them along the way we can better spot anything that might happen, and we end up with better pregnancies. We’re hoping to start that in early to mid-May.”

Low-income people and Hispanics form a great deal of the department’s patient roster.

“The great thing about this clinic is Chris has an interpreter here,” said Martin. “I speak Spanish. I am an Argentine by birth, and so throughout their care either the prenatal part or the family planning part we’ll have translation services and they’ll be able to speak.”

Language can be a big barrier for a lot of patients who are reluctant to come in because they may not have somebody to interpret for them, Martin said.

“We see a lot of unburdened lives when they know we speak Spanish and they can talk freely about things,” she said. “And that’s a lot on Chris; she is the boss. We say we’d like to clone her; she has a great team of people. Patients know the difference when they go to other places. They get the totality of care here they don’t get at other places.”

Sikes said there is a helping hand atmosphere in Houston County that transcends boundaries.

“What I have found in Houston County is that if there is a need, everybody comes to the table and participates,” she said. “Houston Healthcare fixed an ultrasound machine for us. It speaks to me how Houston County works.”

And from the mother and baby point of view, this diminishes the risk, Martin said.

“I find that whenever I need some help that the hospital or the Board of Education says ‘Great! I‘ve got some ideas here that should help you,’” said Sikes. “And everybody comes to the table. There’s not a lot of proprietary ‘That’s not my kind of stuff,’ it’s usually like ‘this is what I have to offer to help you meet your needs. What do you need from that?’”

“And the patients are very thankful; they tell us in their native tongue ‘thank you for being here,’ said Martin. “And the staff is picking up Spanish little by little.”

In addition to helping mothers-to-be, the health department tackles other medical situations.

“We do STD (sexually transmitted disease) screenings and treatment,” said Sikes. “And we know one of the best things is to know what your status is.”

The department does a lot of counseling on STDs and helps educate the public.

“We test and we treat, definitely to help protect the community,” Sikes said. “We do HIV testing and counseling. We do immunizations for adults and teenagers and children, and often at very low or no cost. We do all types of lab work. If a physician sends us an order for it, we can do it. It’s at a very low cost.”

Another program at the department targets tuberculosis, she said.

“We’re responsible for knowing that and treating that, looking for active or suspected cases in the county. So we provide the testing, the medication and the treatments that are associated with TB,” she said.

Beyond the clinical aspect of treating illnesses or healthcare, the department also handles environmental health services.

“We have an environmental supervisor, Christine Buffington, and she and her staff are the ones who do your restaurant inspections, your hotel accommodations, septic tank inspections – they make sure it’s safe for septic tanks to go in – they do rabies control and public pool inspections,” Sikes said.

Even fun events come under their scrutiny.

“We inspect every single vendor at the Georgia National Fair to make sure that our special events are taken care of,” she said, “and they’re doing the inspections on our body art and tattoo studios. So as many services as we have on the clinical side, there are that many on the public health side. Many people aren’t aware of that.”

Perhaps what people are more aware of are the vaccine programs, she said.

“We get vaccines out in the community, so if you’re in a business that’s interested in being vaccinated, we come to you. For adults, we do Hepatitis A and Hepatitis C and tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. Pretty much anything that‘s not a frozen vaccine we’ll do out in the community. Our goal is to get everyone vaccinated. That’s what is most important to us,” she said.

HHJ News