On Saturday from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., TJ Health Columbia will host a health fair.
The health fair functions as something of a small, health-related festival. It will feature booths where attendees can access medical services from “vendors” who provide care and information regarding a range of issues.
“We have our Health and Nutrition, they will be doing blood sugar and be giving away free glucose monitoring devices. Rehab will be there and they have some nice giveaways and (will be) talking about their service. We’ll be talking about our IV therapy and wound care… Family medicine, swing beds… and CMC Adair, which is a new program that is moving into Adair County… and our respiratory therapy, which is new. Lots of information, lots of free things to give away,” explained Daniel Bragg, TJ Regional Health’s Community Outreach and Health Education Specialist.
The primary services for the fair lie in the blood screenings, where those who took the opportunity to have blood drawn on October 2, 17, and 18 can receive their results, and vaccinations. The screenings for lab work include a basic panel of cholesterol and triglycerides. Male attendees can also sign up for free screenings of prostate specific antigens which can be an early indicator of prostate issues. Attendees can have their height, weight, blood pressure and body mass index measured. Finally, vaccinations provided include those for flu, COVID-19, shingles, and pneumonia. These will also be free, though Bragg stated that only the flu vaccine can be guaranteed to be in-stock for walk-ins.
Another offering at the health fair is a colon cancer kit that can be sent off for analysis. If it is positive, it may indicate the individual will want a colonoscopy.
“But this way, if you’re negative, you don’t have to get a colonoscopy,” Bragg said.
The primary benefit of the health fair is that almost all of the screenings and vaccinations are free to those in attendance. Bragg explained how this was helpful to the community.
“The target demographic for this is people who are 40, 50 years old but not old enough they’re on Medicare and everything is covered. That’s the people who have always been served by this, so we thought about, ‘What do they need?’… Everything is free with the exception of we are offering the carotid and aorta screening… which is normally kind of expensive. We are offering that for $50. You won’t actually get that done (on health fair) day but you can sign up for that that day… but everything else is free. All of the blood work, all of the tests, all of the vaccinations, everything we’ve got is free.”
The low cost is made at least partially possible through TJ Health getting money from a grant by the Good Samaritan Foundation through Lindsey Wilson College’s nursing program.
“Of course, they will be there set up there with all of their stuff,” Bragg said. “All of that money has just funded blood draws, but we never used it all. You can’t draw enough blood to spend that amount of money. So we took that money this year and we invested it in additional vaccinations.”
By Kenley Godby
kenley@adairvoice.com
