SACRAMENTO COUNTY: Supervisors Call for Increased Health Care Access

      Sacramento County supervisors decided Tuesday to maintain a central health care clinic for uninsured families, but called for increased access to medical care in low-income communities, the Sacramento Bee reports. Currently, most primary medical services, including a pharmacy, X-rays, orthopedics and tuberculosis control, are housed at a main clinic, with four satellite clinics around the county. But those satellite facilities offer fewer services and force patients to travel to the primary care clinic for additional treatment, supervisors said, urging health officials to "find ways to better serve suburban communities without losing the efficiencies of centralization." Supervisor Illa Collin said, "You can't do everything at every clinic. But we need to look at the service needs in those areas and how to bring more services to them," such as mobile medical vans and new clinics at schools and churches. In addition, supervisors encouraged health officials to form partnerships with private providers to "increase access to health care for low-income families." Supervisors are considering using the county's tobacco windfall to build a new primary care center for low-income and uninsured residents, but Howard Lawrence, president of the grassroots coalition Sacramento Area Congregations Together, urged supervisors to remember that spending "tobacco litigation money should not be a choice between bricks and mortar and providing [expanded] services." He said, "We need to do both" (Davila, 5/10).