Health
The benefits include assistance for rural facilities and health providers to recruit and retain skilled practitioners, provide quality outpatient care and mental health services and respond to emergency health events.
“Every person deserves access to high quality health care regardless of if they live in a big city, small town, or rural community,” said Thompson. “Congress must act to extend these benefits, like it has done many times before, to help ensure that the people living in rural areas can continue to receive the same level of health care services.”
“Access to quality health care is a rapidly-growing challenge in Eastern Washington’s rural communities,” said McMorris Rodgers. “To deal with that challenge, Congress has on previous occasions wisely enacted a number of programs to help rural health facilities and those they serve. It’s critical that those programs be protected to ensure the health and well-being of the 1 in 4 Americans who live in our country’s rural communities.”
Approximately one fourth of all Americans live in rural areas that rely on local community hospitals, clinics and independent practices for their health care. Many of these facilities face significant challenges that these benefits help them overcome such as remote geographic location, small size, workforce scarcity, physician shortages and constrained financial resources.
In addition to the health benefits provided by these facilities, they also provide jobs to hard hit rural communities.
The average Critical Access Hospital directly employs more than 100 people and provides more than $4 million in direct salary, wages and benefits.
An independent physician in a rural area supports more than 20 jobs and provides $1 million in economic benefit to their communities.
“These Medicare “extenders” are vital to ensuring rural health care facilities remain open. We commend Representatives McMorris Rodgers and Thompson for recognizing these challenges and working to extend these vital programs,” said Maggie Elehwany, Vice President of Government Affairs for the National Rural Health Association.
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The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) imposed the quarantine in response to notification from the California Department of Public Health connecting E.coli O157:H7 food-borne illness to the dairy.
The facility was required to meet all sanitation requirements and comply with food safety regulations under state law before the quarantine could be lifted.
During the quarantine, the facility was prohibited from producing raw milk products for the retail market.
The order affected milk as well as raw butter, raw cream, raw colostrum, and a raw product labeled “Qephor.”
At this time, the quarantine hold on raw colostrum remains because it is the subject of continuing investigation by the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
The Department of Public Health identified a cluster of five children who were infected, from August through October, with the same strain of E. coli O157:H7. These children are residents of Contra Costa, Kings, Sacramento and San Diego counties.
Interviews with the families indicate that the only common reported food exposure is unpasteurized (raw) milk from Organic Pastures dairy.
Three of the five children were hospitalized with hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious condition that may lead to kidney failure. There have been no deaths.
The findings that all of the children drank Organic Pastures raw milk and that this was the only common exposure among them established the dairy as the likely source of the illnesses.
The great majority of milk consumed in California is pasteurized. Raw milk is not pasteurized. Pasteurization is a process that kills harmful bacteria.
In California, state law requires that raw milk and raw milk products shall bear the following warning on the label: "Warning – raw (unpasteurized) milk and raw milk dairy products may contain disease-causing micro-organisms. Persons at highest risk of disease from these organisms include newborns and infants; the elderly; pregnant women; those taking corticosteroids, antibiotics or antacids; and those having chronic illnesses or other conditions that weaken their immunity."
Symptoms of E. coli O157:H7 infection may include abdominal cramps and diarrhea which is often bloody. Most infected people recover within a week; however, some may develop complications that require hospitalization.
Young children and the elderly are at highest risk for a potentially life-threatening complication known as hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), which includes kidney failure. People who develop symptoms of E. coli O157:H7 infection after consuming unpasteurized milk or milk products should consult their health care provider.
Physicians who have patients suspected of having HUS or E. coli O157:H7 infections should report them to the local health department.
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