Bedford County Community Health Needs Assessment

Community Health Needs Assessment “We have to live with it because no one will help us. The dentist cracked my tooth and I had to go back and get it again another week. It’s like they treat us like cattle. The care isn’t there.

They push us through and say ‘I have done my good deed for the day’ but they don’t care.”

“Bedford Hospital is very poor on care, especially for children. They give me the runaround and don’t tell what they find out. They are not very thorough. They don’t tell us what happened.

They just give us prescriptions and tell us to go home. If it’s not a cut or bruise, they give up and get stumped and just refer you to someone else, which causes a money situation.”

“There is not a holistic approach to medicine, and if people put the pieces together the health system would improve.”

Large Elderly Population/Need for Geriatric Services Quotes: “In Medicare, your annuals are every two years. They are cutting that back, which is not good.

The bone density test is once in two years now, but I think it should be every year. What if you are at risk?”

“My dad needed a dentist and the dentist had no way of getting my dad from his wheelchair to his chair to work on the patient. Am I supposed to round up two or three people and take him to the dentist? It is hard enough getting him to the office. How are we going to do this?”

“The health department has a pediatric dentist, but it needs a geriatric dentist as well.”

“That is some of the frustration you face when you have elderly folks and the like, not having things accessible, no programs for them. I am real mad about leaving the elderly behind and it is only going to get worse.”

“The adult day care is great and does a great job. It needs to grow.”

“We are worried about doctors’ limited Medicare patients. There will not be enough.”

“Bedford is a geriatric population and I do not think we have things accessible. Many can’t drive.”

“Need social support for older adults.”

“We need instruction or seminars on stress, or something like that. We are an older population. You just read books and try to go on experience of other people. That is where I am at with mine. That is one of the things that I think is a problem. I will tell you what, this is one of the hardest things I have ever done, is elder care.”

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