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 Photo: Keystone
Rural Health Center CEO and President Joanne Cochran is
known for her tenacity.
March 1
– Joanne Cochran is not a big woman, but in many ways
she is larger than life.
The
Keystone Rural Health Center CEO and president said she
“put a bug” in Congressman Bill Shuster’s ear in August
2002 when he visited the center. She told him she needed
money to expand dental services.
This
afternoon Shuster delivered. In ceremonies at Keystone
in Chambersburg, he handed Cochran a ceremonial,
oversized check for $100,000 that he had managed to get
into an appropriations bill.
The
money has already been spent – paying for three new
fully-equipped dental rooms that Keystone Dental Care’s
four dentists can now use. Each “operatory,” as they are
called, cost $25,000, according to Cochran. The
remaining $25,000 was used to renovate the building to
create better access to the new rooms, she said.
Cochran
said there is a four-month waiting list for dental
services, and it is hoped that the new rooms will ease
some of that backlog.
In
today’s ceremonies, Cochran praised Shuster as “a man of
his word” who has demonstrated that he cares about rural
health care. But if the Congressman thought the $100,000
check let him off the hook, he had another think coming.
Before
Shuster left Keystone, Cochran announced that she had
already “put another bug in his other ear – a big bug.”
She explained that she would like to build a new health
center and consolidate some of Keystone’s services – an
expensive proposition.
“We’re
planning to consolidate (some of) our services under one
roof,” she said. “We want to build a new center.”
The big
bug in Shuster’s ear was a poorly veiled hint, but then
there is little that is subtle about Cochran when it
comes to providing health services to the Franklin
County community. She spends her working hours – some
say they often amount to 20 a day – thinking about how
Keystone can better help serve its patients – especially
the underserved people who have no insurance, or are
underinsured.
From
its small beginnings serving the migrant and farmworkers
population back in the late 1980s, the public,
non-profit organization has grown into a center that
serves approximately 45,000 patients a year – offering
them a full range of medical and dental health care,
without regard for their ability to pay.
Shuster
today lauded Cochran and the Keystone board for their
work in helping those who need it most. “Keystone does a
great job providing services to the uninsured and the
underinsured,” he said, adding that quality health care
facilities have a broader impact on the communities they
serve.
“Health
care is absolutely critical for this community,” he
said. In addition to serving the local population’s
medical needs, he said health care is an economic engine
that creates jobs and fuels the economy, and acts as an
economic development tool, in that the availability of
quality health care services are one thing companies
look at when deciding where to build or relocate.
Currently, Keystone offers comprehensive health care
services and as a result is making an impact on several
levels in the local area, Shuster said.
In
addition to its farmworkers program, Keystone has:
Keystone Family Practice at 820 Fifth Avenue; Keystone’s
Women’s Care at 757 Fifth Avenue; Keystone Dental Care
at 767 Fifth Avenue; Keystone Health Center – Path
Valley family practice in Dry Run; Franklin County
Pediatrics at 176 S. Coldbrook Avenue, and the new
Franklin County Heart Center specialty practice at 757
Norland Avenue.
Cochran
spoke after the ceremony about her plans for the future
– big and little.
She
said that the four dentists Keystone currently has on
staff, for example, “take care of all the uninsured and
people on medical assistance” in the community, because
it doesn’t pay private practice dentists to treat that
population.
“Financially, it’s not possible for them to do it,”
Cochran said. Because the demand on Keystone is so
great, she said she hopes eventually to add a fifth
dentist to the staff at the dental clinic.
But
while she must focus on the small cogs in Keystone’s
growing wheel, Cochran and the organization’s board also
have their minds set on the long term.
“We’re
currently paying more than $200,000 in leases a year,”
she said. Consolidating those offices in a new
Keystone-owned health center would save money in the
long run, even though it will probably cost $4 million
to build a new facility, according to Cochran.
She
said that Keystone already owns its main building on
Norland Avenue, and last year bought the dental practice
building, with grant monies.
“A
third building would hold women’s care, pediatrics and
all our administrative offices,” she explained.
As for
Shuster, he better get to work soon if he wants to get
that big bug out of his other ear. Cochran said she
would like to have the new center building completed by
June 2005.
You can
contact Terry Talbert by email:
ttalbert@thegazettenews.com
or by phone: 264-0383 ext.702 |
