LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The North Central District Health Department is making some changes to its services next month.
The district includes health department clinics in Henry, Shelby, Spencer and Trimble counties.
According to a news release, starting Oct. 1, the district will stop providing family planning and breast and cervical cancer screening services at its four county health departments. That means services like birth control, annual women's health exams and pregnancy testing will not be available.
Roanya Rice, public health director for the North Central District Health Department, said ending this services is part of an effort to reduce duplication of services and to align with Public Health Transformation. She said the pre-natal program ended for the same reason just a few years ago.
"It happened shortly after the time when public health was experiencing large reductions in their budgets mainly as a result of the Affordable Care Act," she said. "A lot of the money was being re-directed."
Rice said several patients were able to obtain insurance and started going to primary care providers for all of their medical needs instead of going to the health department for preventative care.
"Health departments had to recreate themselves a bit and think about refocus, where we needed to be," she said.
The North Central District will continue to offer all other services at its health departments that were previously provided, including communicable disease monitoring, TB screenings, sexually transmitted infection testing, adult/pediatric immunizations, Vaccine for Children immunizations, COVID vaccine, flu vaccine, preventative healthcare checks, WIC services, and the HANDS program.
In a release, the North Central District included a list of providers for patients to reach out to about providing the family planning/cancer screenings that the health departments will no longer offer:
- Women’s Care of the Bluegrass, 615 11th Street (Inside Shelby Co. HD) Shelbyville, Ky. Phone: 502-227-2229.
- Henry County Community Health Center, 75 Park Road (Inside Henry Co. HD) New Castle, Ky., 502-772-5034.
- Taylorsville Community Health Center, 501 Taylorsville Road, Taylorsville, Ky., 502-477-2248.
- Tri-County OB/GYN @ Baptist Health LaGrange, 1023 New Moody Lane, Suite 203, La Grange, Ky., 502-222-5558.
Some of the services are available based on income, similar the North Central District fee structure.
The providers in Henry and Shelby counties will still be located within those county health departments, but the family planning services will be administered through federally qualified healthcare centers renting space there.
"We have tried to assure that us discontinuing the services did not result in lack of access," said Rice.
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