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Access to quality health care is a consistent concern and more than a passing conversation when assessing the quality of life in southern West Virginia – or any rural outpost across the country for that matter. A need? Look no further than a 2021 report by U.S. News and World Report that ranked the Mountain State 47th in health care. The report looked at access to care, quality of care and the overall health of the population as key indicators. So it does our heart good to see providers in these parts extending their services into and throughout our communities because we are all in this together. And, clearly, that is a bucket that needs filled.
The latest example is Access Health teaming up with the Raleigh County School Board to place a clinic inside the newly constructed Stratton Elementary School. Hats off to those who had the foresight to include a clinic in the design of the new school along Fayette Street in Beckley. Not unlike a classroom, a music room, a cafeteria, that clinic was considered part and parcel in this new day and age of what constitutes a public school and what it should give back to its community. That should be the prototype, the “state of the art” in new school construction going forward.
There is much beyond the control of health care providers and building architects to meet the contemporary challenges of our communities from complex and complicated issues pockmarked with bad policy decision making by the Legislature to environmental and socioeconomic neglect. Now East Beckley, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city and state, has a medical clinic on its front lawn. What’s not to like about that?
Other providers as well have been at the forefront of these outreach efforts. New River Health, by way of example, has staff members in schools in Fayette, Nicholas and Raleigh counties. Rainelle Medical Center, serving its community of 1,900 people in the western outback of Greenbrier County, practices what its mission statement preaches: Providing quality health services and educational information, regardless of ability to pay.
Two big thumbs up to all providers, big and small, who are reaching a little farther into our neighborhoods – in our cities and up the hollers – to make sure that more residents can be more confident that improved health care and better outcomes are part of their future.
By J. Damon Cain, editor of The Register-Herald
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Thumbs up to all those working during the Thanksgiving holiday in an effort to make it easier for those who are traveling to visit loved ones, those who will be home, and those who will be out in droves on Black Friday.
Here’s to our soldiers standing guard across the globe, to the law enforcement officers offering protection, to the volunteer firefighters who will leave a family dinner in order to save another family’s home or a local business, to the doctors and nurses and others in the hospitals and medical clinics ready to administer aid and comfort, to the volunteers serving hot meals to anyone in need, to those manning the interstate toll booths, to the store clerks and cashiers, and the myriad others providing services none of us should take for granted.
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Thumbs up to Ed Wills, who is retiring Dec. 11 after 40 years with the Beckley Fire Department. For nearly nine years, he’s served as fire chief.
Wills said he still remembers his hiring date, July 13, 1981, and what it was like to be a fresh-faced recruit.
“It was very exciting,” said Wills, who was three years out of high school at the time. “You start out, and you go into training for three months. And when you finish your training, you feel like you’re ready, but in reality, you’re not because firefighting is such a – you never know what you’re going to pull up on from day to day; every call is different. And so, as a young firefighter, you latch on to the officers, and you try to learn as quick as you possibly can, and after all this time, I’m still learning.”
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Thumbs up to Joe Coughlin for stepping up to serve as fire chief. Coughlin has been with the Beckley Fire Department for 33 years.
“I wanted to be a fireman since I was 6,” Coughlin said. “I never had any doubt what I was going to do. It was just a matter of opportunity … I love the fire service. I tried to join (the fire department) when I was 6, but they wouldn’t let me.”
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Thumbs up to Maurice Cohn, who will be making his directorial debut as conductor of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra as it celebrates “Sounds of the Season” Friday, Dec. 1, at 7 p.m., at Carnegie Hall.
A two-time recipient of the Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award, Cohn was recently named the 11th music director of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra.
By Mary Catherine Brooks
of The Wyoming County Report
for The Register-Herald
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