Area medical experts say rural health care is on the decline

WINSTON COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Mississippi continues to rest at the bottom of the national rankings when it comes to health care.

People who live in small communities can tell you that may be because they have to travel a long way to get to a doctor or nurse.

The people who run the hospitals and clinics in our smaller communities see it every day.

They say there are fewer doctors and nurse practitioners who want to work in rural areas.

Paul Black is the CEO of Winston Medical Center

He said rural health care is very different from health care in larger cities.

“It’s not like in Jackson where they may see a patient and then never seem again until they come back. Here in Louisville, they’ll see a patient on Friday and then see them again in church on Sunday,” said Black.

Heather Gilmer is a certified Nurse Practitioner at Winston Medical Clinic. She said she has a personal bond with all of her patients.

“I know everything there is to know about some of these people. Like when I see them in the community, I know what they can take, what they can’t take. I can remember when they had their open-heart surgery. I can tell you that they don’t tolerate certain medications. I can tell you probably more than I should be able to tell you about them,” said Gilmer.

She said it can be hard to get younger medical professionals interested in working at rural clinics.

“It’s difficult to entice anyone to come to an area like this, if they don’t know, or if they don’t have any ties to here,” said Gilmer.

Black said that’s where incentives come in.

“We provide a signing bonus when they do come in, get out of school and sign. We also have a stipend program where we have a student that’s in medical school, we’ll pay them so much a month to help them defray their expenses, then when they do get out there’s relocation expenses that we pay… The problem is everybody is doing the same thing,” said Black.

Nurse Practitioner Mary Smith said there are reasons there are fewer physicians in rural health care.

“Over time, physicians started to specialize. So, as you’ve gotten so many specialty physicians, you don’t see that many to do family practice or primary care anymore because a lot of them go into specialties,” said Smith.

She said this will continue unless action is taken immediately.

“If there are steps that aren’t taken, I do think it will continue to decline. This is for health care in general, no matter what type of health care provider that you are, if it’s a nurse practitioner or a physician, I do think that we will continue to see less health care providers in rural areas,” said Smith

Some medical experts believe that allowing nurse practitioners “full practice authority” without a “collaborative agreement” with a physician could help bring more health care providers to rural areas.