Health officials launched an outreach campaign Thursday to inform the public about the array of services available at the Morris F. deCastro Clinic on St. John. The clinic’s administrator said the Thursday get-together was the first in a series of nine monthly events allowing residents to meet the medical teams who will be on hand in Cruz Bay on a rotating basis.
The first interface took place between residents and service providers for neonatal care, family planning, and maternal health. Leading the presenters was Dr. Debra Wright-Francis, an obstetrician-gynecologist who calls the Maternal and Child Health Clinic on St. Thomas home base.
Orientation sessions like the one held Thursday took place six weeks after a contentious public hearing with Sen. Ray Fonseca, chair of the 35th Legislature’s Committee on Health, Hospitals, and Human Services. Residents who showed up at that meeting — including former deCastro Clinic Public Health Nurse Sally Browne — said that almost none of the health care services affiliated with deCastro were active or available to the public.
Browne appeared briefly at Thursday’s meeting to chastise officials about giving short notice. Francis said the staff used social media to get the word out. Lockhart said handbills were posted in some St. John shop windows. One audience member said she came after seeing a handbill posted Thursday at the St. John Marketplace.
A small group of parents and grandparents filled the seats in the clinic’s waiting room to hear about services ranging from birth control counseling to high-risk maternity care and a soon-to-be-introduced screening program for cervical and breast cancer.
Francis described the prenatal and maternal care team’s mission to provide in-person care on St. Thomas and St. John. But deCastro Clinic Administrator Aliah Lockhart urged audience members to let their family and friends know they no longer had to cross two islands in order to get needed services.
But when the need arose, the doctor said Health had acquired telemedicine technology that would allow them to deliver 21st-century healthcare virtually.
How often the service providers could meet patients on St. John will depend on the number that shows up at the clinic for treatment and care, they said. Health educator Kisha Williams added that services at deCastro are also available for St. Thomas residents, many of whom commute to St. John for work. Once their name and patient information is registered in the electronic record-keeping system, she said, they too can get counseling, checkups, treatment, and screenings at the Cruz Bay clinic.
