First annual health fair held in Lanett

BY JOHN BRICE

THE LAFAYETTE SUN

LANETT — Local residents gathered last week to learn and connect with community medical services and receive information at the inaugural health fair in Lanett. Teresa Booker-Woody, who recently moved to Chambers County, organized the event after witnessing urgent health needs in the community. These health concerns are a reflection of rising trends of diseases that can be prevented with community resources and education.

Booker-Woody shared her inspiration for getting involved and working for better health outcomes.

“The event was for the, for health and wellness of the community,” she said. “What we wanted to do was study the data in this community, and we created an event around the health needs of this area. STDs are on the rise so we had three people here to do HIV and STD testing. We see that Chlamydia is at the top of the list — there has been about 15,000 cases from January to June, and that is a lot. Syphilis, gonorrhea and HIV are on the rise, so we wanted to create something where people could get free testing.”

The varying and diverse healthcare needs in the community were reflected in the wide range of services that were offered at the event.

“We had the wellness center here from LaFayette,” she said. “They had four tables on asthma, cognitive assessments, biometric and pediatric. We also had a GI nurse here. We had a number of different people here. We also had medicare insurance specialists here. That is going to be popping up. We are all going to get these crazy calls. We wanted to give the older people in the community a safe place to go and talk with someone without being met with all these crazy calls and people trying to sell them something so people can get what they need.”

Working with health and wellness stakeholders in the community was another topic that Booker-Woody she said she was passionate about.

“I partnered with Auburn University because they oversee the wellness center,” she said. “Dr. Gillis was there for the family and marriage, he does therapy for families. Dr. Fagan came through and did a drive thru and talked to a couple of people. We had Circle of Care here, The RCEA, the rape prevention group, and we had the Lee County Center for Disease and Control.”

Common misconceptions about health issues being limited to the elderly was another key concern that Booker-Woody addressed.

“Young people need to go to the doctor and have an annual checkup,” she said. “There was a young man that I know who had no idea he had diabetes. He almost died. He started having serious health issues. Thank God he does not have to be on dialysis for the rest of his life. There was a nurse practitioner who told me she is seeing that there is an uptick of young people who didn’t know they had diabetes and they ended up being on dialysis for the rest of their lives.”

One of the most alarming health concerns plaguing the community is increasing rates of sexually transmitted disease cases that Booker-Woody said she has observed in the research data.

“Another major issue is HIV and STDs,” she said. “The youngest case of HIV is 13, the oldest case is 64. We need to talk about preventative health and how to protect yourself. One of the HIV folks who were here, she said that the use of condoms have gone down across the nation. Men don’t really know that they have Chlamydia, but they are part of the 15,000 cases. That is something that is really important and we need to do something about it.”