Clark County Health Department's "Get Yourself Tested" Campaign, Part 1
Monday, July 25th, 2016 -- 1:29 PM
-The Clark County Health Department is encouraging county residents to get tested for STI’s.I spoke with Kelsey Lynn, a nurse at Clark County’s Reproductive Health Clinic, and Melissa Kono, the county’s CNRED agent, about an initiative they’re running known as they “Get Yourself Tested” Initiative. First Kelsey explained what services the clinic offers and how they were able to do this initiative.
"I run our Family Planning Clinic out of Greenwood. We actually have a clinic office located within Memorial Medical Center right on Main Street across from Kwik Trip, so it's a pretty convenient location. So, we offer confidential and low cost and/or free services to men and women of reproductive age. As far as the low cost piece, what we can do is offer a Medicaid insurance program known as Family Planning Only Services. What this is is an extension off the Badgercare, so we're actually able to provide services and supplies at no cost if we can sign individuals up for that program. So, some of the requirements would include being 15 years or older, being a Wisconsin resident, a US citizen and meeting the income guidelines."
"Some of the services that we could offer would be education and counseling, contraceptive services, emergency contraception or Plan B, STI testing and treatment, PAP test and pregnancy testing. And yes, we did receive funding from the Wisconsin Division of Public Health. The campaign is called the "Get Yourself Tested" Campaign or initiative. And the purpose is to increase public education on the importance of sexually transmitted disease or STD risk awareness and testing."
Coming up on Tuesday, Kelsey will talk about why getting tested is important.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.