Via: The Marshall News Messenger
Genesis Prime Care in Marshall is among several rural North and East Texas health care agencies to receive grants from the Texas Women’s Foundation.
TXWF has announced its second set of grants from its Health Care Access Fund totaling $420,000 to help women and girls access health care in underserved Texas communities in North and East Texas. As part of its Health Care Access Fund, Texas Women’s Foundation launched the Reproductive Freedom Initiative in 2022 to deliver urgent and long-term women’s healthcare programming to communities that desperately need resources.
With eight grants given earlier in the year totaling $487,125 in rural Texas communities, the foundation has now awarded a total of $907,125 to 15 deserving organizations.
In this round, the Foundation awarded seven grants totaling $420,000 to carefully vetted community health care clinics:
- Collins Family Planning Clinic (Fort Worth)
- Genesis Prime Care (Marshall)
- Gulf Coast Health Center (Port Arthur)
- Health Services North Texas (Denton)
- Crossroads Family Clinic (Mount Enterprise)
- Parkland Health Foundation (Dallas)
TAN (Triangle Area Network)
- Healthcare (Beaumont)
This grant will support Genesis Prime Care in hiring an OB/GYN, and other health care providers, to conduct gynecological examinations, provide prenatal care and treatment, prescribe contraceptives, order and review lab work, counsel and provide pre-conception patient health education, nutrition and prenatal information.
The key services supported will be family planning, prenatal and well-women. Of significance, Marshall and the surrounding communities in Harrison County (Hallsville, Elysian Fields, Waskom, Harleton, Karnack and Scottsville) have not had reproductive, gynecological services locally since 2018. This rural area also has a high prevalence of low-income residents and residents below federal poverty levels.
These clinics are providing services in these priority areas:
- Hiring of OB/GYN and other critical healthcare providers
- Full access to all types of birth control, including long-acting, reversible contraceptives, at an affordable cost
- Prenatal care, women’s healthcare and other staffing needs
- Family planning, prenatal, obstetric and postpartum medical visits for uninsured, low-income women
- Funds to hire a Women’s Health Coordinator/Community Health Worker to conduct outreach to educate women on healthcare access and availability
Dena Hughes, CEO of Triangle Area Network Healthcare, said, “The funds awarded through the Texas Women’s Foundation are critical to the ongoing availability of and access to critically important pregnancy prevention tools that are both safe and effective. We are excited to partner with TXWF to ensure Southeast Texas women and their families know that they are not alone in navigating and managing their reproductive healthcare options.”
Marsha Thigpen, M.D., executive director of Gulf Coast Health Center (GCHC) Inc., added, “Gulf Coast Health Center, Inc. would like to thank Texas Women’s Foundation for the grant funds received. GCHC will be able to improve the care delivered in our Women’s Health Department, more specifically will be able to improve monitoring our patients as we expand our services to include obstetrics with improved quality ultrasound equipment.”
Janice Brown, executive director/nurse practitioner of Collins Family Planning Clinic, said, “This grant will enable us to purchase and provide LARCs for women immediately. They will also be able to receive the care and planning they need from our healthcare professionals.”
According to Dena Jackson, Texas Women’s Foundation interim president and CEO, “It is getting more difficult for Texas women to secure safe and affordable reproductive health care. As a result, Texas Women’s Foundation has stepped into the gap to provide access to affordable contraception, prenatal care and women’s services to ease the burden.”