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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 28, 1978)
►age 8B THE BATTALION MONDAY, AUGUST 28, 1978 Brazos County offers complete health services By FLA VIA KRONE Battalion Campus Editor Brazos County offers various lealth services to all area citizens anging from alcoholic and drug ibuse counseling to a mental retar dation children’s day school. H owever, there are no child' ibuse or rape clinics in Bryan- '>o!lege Station. The area is served by two fully- tccredited general hospitals -— the Sryan Hospital and St. Joseph Hos- htal. Bryan Hospital, located at 1305 Memorial Drive, has a 65-bed opacity and is generally 75 percent all. St. Joseph’s, operated by Catholic jiuns of the Franciscan Order, has a 148-bed capacity and is usually ibout 57 percent full. St. Joseph’s is ocated at 2801 Franciscan Drive. 3oth are full service hospitals. The Brazos County Health De- jartment provides children s mi nimizations, health cards, tuber culosis tests, venereal disease tests, ilood pressure screening, diabetic icreening, PKU tests for newborn Comet comment United Press International In 1456, Pope Calixtus III issued i papal bull — an official decree — igainst Halley’s comet, ordering the aithful to pray that the heavenly .ymbol of “the anger of God” be di- /erted “against the Turks, the foes af the Christian name.” infants, a crippled children’s pro gram and a baby clinic. All services are free. Children’s immunizations are given from 10 to 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 to 4 p m. daily, Health cards and tuberculosis tests are available dur ing the same hours Monday, Tues day and Wednesday only. The VD clinic is held from 8 to 9 a.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Fri day. Blood pressure screening, diabe tic screening and PKU tests for newborn infants are held from 10 to 11:30 a.m, Thursday and Friday. The health department is located on the first floor, 202 East 27th St. in Bryan. The Crippled Children’s Program and Well Baby Clinic work through appointments with health nurses. Financial need must be established. The Well Baby clinic is held the third Wednesday and fourth Tues day of each month to check the child’s growth and development. Nutrition counseling is also given. Infants and children through five years of age from low income families are accepted. Brazos County Mental Health- Mental Retardation Center offers alcohol and drug abuse counseling services for a minimal fee that is re quired by the state. An MH-MR in formation spokeman said the coun selors take a non-religious, non- moralistic approach to these prob lems. DWI classes are given and probation counseling is often re quired in sentences. Fees are arranged on a sliding fee scale based on family size and in come. The MH-MR center is largely concerned with caring for the men tally handicapped. A day school for mentally retarded children three years old and younger, The Family Tree halfway house for mentally re tarded adults, and Dilly Shaw Farm and Training Center are also run by the MH-MR center. Personal counseling is limited at the center so some cases are re ferred to the Bluebonnet Psychiatric Center. The MH-MR Center is trying to secure funds for a crisis intervention line. Planned Parenthood Association offers pregnancy testing for a $3 fee and pregnancy counseling for a fee based on income. The association also charges for birth control services which include pelvic exams and pap smears. More information is available from Sally Miller at Planned Parenthood in Bryan. Services are open to all though some are restricted to per sons from low income families. Family Planning also offers preg nancy tests and clinics based on fam ily income. Because there is no rape crisis unit or child abuse clinic for victim or abuser, suspected cases of child abuse in Brazos County are referred to the child welfare division of the Department of Human Resources. Rape victims are referred to private analysts. C5rroVv> Doctors prefer to practice in cities; pay in rural areas too low for most NOTICE: To All TAMU STUDENTS, FACULTY AND STAFF MUFFLER SHOPS ; MIDAS MUFFLER SHOP 3210 Texas Ave. Bryan, Texas 77801 779-5945 PREFERRED CUSTOMER DISCOUNT OFF ALL NON-SALE MERCHANDISE • The Midas Muffler that we install on your American car is guaranteed for as long as you own the car. If anything goes wrong, even if it just wears out, any Midas shop will replace the muffler free of charge. United Press International DENVER — There is no ques tion that most doctors woidd rather practice in cities than in rural America these days. The question is why. The answers given are many: county living is boring, lack of intel lectual stimulation, poor quality of schools, remoteness from medical mainstreams. Dr. Amos Bratrude, a second generation country doctor who runs a small hospital in Omak, Wash., likes to come to the point. It is money, he says. “But it has always been dirty to talk about money,” Bratrude said recently at the American Medical Association’s 31st National Confer ence on Rural Health. “Somehow the rural area was purer than the rest of society and money didn’t matter to those who deliver rural health care. Well, I have news for you; money does mat ter.” Bratrude doesn t deny that doc tors aren’t attracted to rural practice for reasons other than income, but he has taken up the task of showing up at AMA conventions and saying: “Money ain’t everything, but it’s a lot. Some statistics tossed out by Bratrude illustrate his point: — The average annual payments for Medicare benefits for an elderly person in a city such as Los Angeles in 1972 were $425 compared to $296 for a recipient living in a non metropolitan area. — 50 percent of the poor people in the United States live in non metropolitan areas, but only 30 per cent of the Medicaid funds go to those areas. — Medicare patients paid $67 for coverage in 1972. Rural Medicare patients received $56 back in bene fits. City patients got back $160 in benefits. “Pure and simply put, the patient in the rural area is receiving sub stantially less of the health care dol lar than the health care patient in the city,” said Bratrude. “So no matter what else we look at, one of the reasons, and I feel the major reason, that we have a proh- lem in the delivery of rural health care, is that we aren’t spending the money there. “Every other place in our society we have the philosophy, you get what you pay for. I’m sure it applies to the rural area as well. We are get ting what we are paying for.” Doctors have to eat too, says Bratrude, and money counts a lot in their decision whether to practice in rural areas. “In the past, the rural family doc tor had the privilege of working long hours, seeing lots of patients and performing lots of technical things — surgery, obstetrics, etc.,’ he said. “These all combined to make his income pretty good, regardless of the fee schedule. The old doctor also had the privilege of working so hard he often ended up with a bad heart, a bad family life and certainly a demanding, difficult practice. "There is no way to sell that life and that practice to the young doc tor coming out today. “Today, the family practice coun terpart in the city has a lower pa tient load, less on-call time, and a less stressful practice. In addition, the counterpart has a higher in come. Where would you choose to live and practice?” Bratrude argues for serious alter ing of our present health care sys tems to give rural regions a fair shake. But before that, he would like to see the myriad federal pro grams In rural health care studied and coordinated. For Bratrude, it adds up to thisai more equitable financial structutj for those who receive and providi rural health care. “Let us try paying the people who are delivering care in the rural area the same as we pay for that health care in the cities,” he said. Female mice too willing Sex-baited mousetrap fails WELCOME BACK TO AGGIELAND! AGGIES ... 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Biological control using sterile males has proved successful in con trolling insects in other parts of the world and also has been attempted in Australia with the sheep blowfly. But it had not been tried with ani mal pests. Using a large outdoor enclosure to simulate a wild population of mice, the researchers attempted to see if the sterility gene could be es tablished in the mouse population, ultimately reducing the number of the rodents. The sterility gene affects only the fertility of male mice, though females can act as carriers. The sterility gene, however, dis appeared completely from the enclosed mouse population instead of spreading. From observation, it was discov ered female mice may mate four or five times with different males, so even if a sterile male did manage to mate first with a given female, his efforts would be undone by other males, a scientist said. 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