Tagged: wyoming department of health

Wyoming is reporting the highest rate of influenza since the swine flu epidemicin 2009. Clay Van Houten with the Wyoming Department of Health says numbers are three times as high as last year.

“A couple weeks ago we had a little over 450 cases reported,” says Van Houten, “that’s definitely more than any week we’ve had reported since 2009.”

Earlier this year the Wyoming legislature told the State Department of Health to study the rising costs of Medicaid and determine if the program can be changed.  

This week the Department will begin a series of meetings to see if members of the public have ideas on how the program can be both more efficient and improved.  Medicaid pays for the health care of low income people and those with disabilities.  Health Department Spokeswoman Kim Deti  says this is not just about trimming the budget.         

According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, unintentional deaths of children under the age of 19 declined by 29-percent nationally between 2000 and 2009.

However, Kelly Weidenbach, an epidemiologist with the Wyoming Department of Health, says there has not been a similar drop in Wyoming.

Officials at Sheridan Memorial Hospital say they are being upfront and transparent with the Wyoming Department of Health and patients in regards to equipment that may not have been properly sterilized.

According to the Department of Health, Sheridan Memorial failed to fully sterilize a piece of surgical equipment known as a laryngeal  mask airway between May and November of last year.

Mike McCafferty is CEO of Sheridan Memorial. He says the hospital is looking into how the situation occurred.

The Wyoming Department of Health is facing budget cuts of five percent, following the denial of two budget items by the legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee last month.  The department asked the J-A-C to replace 48 million dollars that was lost after federal budget money ran out. 

The funding was for mandatory Medicaid and mandatory emergency health detention costs. 

With the denial, Department of Health Director Tom Forslund says his office is looking at some major cuts.

 The Wyoming Department of Health is reminding women to take steps to reduce their risk of cervical
cancer.
     Carol Peterson of the Wyoming Breast and Cervical Cancer Early
Detection Program says there has been significant progress in the
fight against cervical cancer in recent year.
     But a state Health Department report says Wyoming is ranked low
at 45th in the nation for women reporting they had at least one Pap
test in the past three years.
     Wyoming currently has a 78.3 percent Pap test screening rate,