Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 9, 1995 TAG: 9502090046
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That statistic - and other findings in the New River Valley Health and Human Services Needs Assessment - reflects profound stresses on the well-being and financial stability of local families, health care providers say.
"The crack in the safety net has become a canyon," said Dr. Bill Hendricks, a Blacksburg family practitioner.
Families can't pay medical bills, and health insurance isn't available through the workplace for the unemployed or people working part-time jobs without benefits, Hendricks and others say.
About 400 households in Montgomery, Pulaski, Giles and Floyd counties and Radford were questioned door-to-door and by telephone for the Needs Assessment. Residents were asked to identify major social problems in their communities and their households.
The results merely confirm what social workers confront each day, said Stephonia Munson, director of Montgomery County's Human Services Commission.
Hendricks, a volunteer physician at the Free Clinic of the New River Valley, shares the concern of other professionals who believe the situation will worsen if threatened funding cuts for social services become reality.
"It's just a disaster. I can't understand the state government even considering some of these cuts," said Rosemary Collins, director of the Program for Special Medical Care.
Presently, area physicians are voluntarily providing free health care for 450 indigent clients through Collins' program. "We're just not even scratching the tip of the iceberg," she said.
Similarly, the Free Clinic treated 3,500 low-income medical patients last year, a two-year, 23 percent increase that Hendricks called "a barometer of distress."
The Needs Assessment also reports 21 percent of New River Valley households have had difficulty finding work. About a third said they have experienced significant problems with anxiety, stress or depression.
Lack of affordable health care, difficulty finding work and mental stress are woes that compound each other, Munson said.
Forty health care providers surveyed for the Needs Assessment reported that 80 percent of their clients can't get health insurance or pay doctor bills.
Unemployment was the leading community problem named by survey respondents. "Recent economic difficulties have plagued the New River Valley," the survey says. Negative economic ripple effects continue to radiate from the closing of the Fairlawn AT&T plant in 1988 and the on-going downsizing of the Radford Army Ammunition Plant's work force, it adds.
"I see in the future for the problem to worsen as well-paying jobs become scarcer and insurance continues to be harder to get," Hendricks said.
"I don't know what the answer is," Collins said. "It certainly is depressing."
Others advocated progress on national health reform. The trend toward privatization of services must include greater private-sector support for health care organizations if community needs are to be met, they agreed.
The Needs Assessment was conducted by Virginia Tech's Center for Survey Research and by New River Community Action. The first of its kind, it cost $31,000 and was jointly funded by the United Way of Montgomery County and Radford, local governments and grant money. Participants were chosen at random.
The survey is intended to provide information for local decision-makers who allocate dollars to social service agencies.
Survey respondents also gave their opinion about issues that they did not believe to be significant local problems. Results indicate they're not nearly as worried about public transportation, homelessness, pollution, AIDS or family violence as they are about economic concerns or getting health care.
by CNB