However, a more than half-million dollar grant awarded to the Webster County Health Department will allow testing and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases and more at little to no cost to residents.

“In the past, we have been a community-based screening center through the state where basically we do testing and treatment for chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis, but we don’t get any funding to do it. It’s all been in kind,” said Bre Case, operations specialist for Webster County Health Department. “A lot of the people wanting to be tested also wanted to know their HIV status and we weren’t able to test for that under the community-based screening services.”

Case and Webster County Health Department Director Jen Sumpter applied for the Syndemic Prevention Outreach and Testing (SPOT) grant, which will allow the department to provide HIV testing, hepatitis C testing, hepatitis A and B vaccines, substance abuse care coordination, as well as looking for bacterial and fungal infections in individuals with substance abuse to get them treatment as soon as possible.

The five-year grant will allow the Webster County Health Department to expand their services throughout the community and to locations that are in need.

“We’re going to be able to partner with organizations that might be in need of testing — Iowa Central, Beacon of Hope, the SALT Center, etc.,” said Case. “There are many individuals who may be homeless or perhaps they just don’t have insurance coverage and they don’t know their status or what kinds of hepatitis vaccines they’ve had, so with this grant we’ll be able to provide all of these services in one.”

In addition to providing expanded care to Webster County residents through the SPOT grant, Webster County Health Department also received additional funding for breast and cervical cancer screenings through the Care For Yourself program.

According to Sumpter and Case, the health department was previously able to fund only 18 breast and cervical cancer screenings for women who were uninsured or underinsured. However, they were able to increase that now to 56 screenings for residents per year.

“That program has really expanded a lot,” said Case. “We’ve partnered with Community Health Center. We utilize our Spanish interpreter a lot to reach our Hispanic communities as well. The Care For Yourself program has really expanded and has helped a lot of women in Webster County.”

Webster County Health Department also provides maternal health programs, rural water testing, the WIC program, dental health screenings, and much more.

“We see the neediest people in Webster County and we want to be here to provide those resources to them,” said Sumpter. “We have an open-door policy. We have people come in to fill out applications and we’ll do whatever we can to help with services.”

“We really encourage people to come in,” added Case. “There is no wrong door. If you’re not sure if we provide the services, come in. Just show up and we will help you figure it out. We have people come in because they need help with rent and we end up connecting them with home visitation programs or maternal health services. When you’re here, we’re going to make sure that you’re taken care of and have the resources available to you from top to bottom.”