Show RURAL HEALTH Health Councils Bring Better Medical Care to Rural Areas One of the brightest indications of progress in securing more doctors and better health facilities for rural areas In this country is the recent announcement by the American Medical Association that community health councils in the nation have increased from 82 to nearly in the last two These figures are based on a survey of the association's council on medical service in which county medical societies were Thomas A. Hendricks of secretary of the Local achievements of the community health councils In the last five years Include construction of hospitals with the aid of the hospital survey and construction act increasing available hospital developing securing more nurses and other needed development of local public health health examination of children of school and pre-school age and correction of their health promotion of prepayment medical care and provision of medical care for the aged and chronically and meeting costs of medical service to families unable to pay for hospitalization and doctors' according to In some Instances community councils have been extremely helpful in cooperating with the national mental health Councils have matched government funds to pay mental health clinic personnel and conducted educational campaigns to acquaint communities with the value and manner of operation of the And although health councils have been organized in urban as well as in rural they have been especially Important In bringing better medical care to the people in rural Hendricks a a THE efforts to promote organization of community health councils to improve medical care for long neglected rural communities date back to the organization of the association's committee on rural health five years Since that time it has been actively engaged in coordinating the efforts of farm groups and state and local medical societies in rural The committee Is set up so that Its representatives can be reached locally In any Doctors selected by state medical societies serve as directors in nine regions and as state rural health chairmen in 45 Any organization wanting information on setting up a local health council or solving rural health problems may contact one of these representatives or write directly to the A.M. A. rural health committee in a m AS AN EXAMPLE of how the council plan suppose members of an Ohio farm bureau wrote the A.M. A. that a community needs a doctor and does not have the facilities to attract The community wants to build and staff a health clinic with aid from the hospital survey and construction act What The information Is referred to the regional director who takes the matter up with the state rural health chairman and the state medical The state chairman and the medical society contact the farm a meeting Is and the state chairman and representatives of the state and local medical farm organizations and civic groups get together at the community level to work out the That the rural health problem Is steadily being solved through cooperative community efforts was generally agreed at a conference on rural health in Kansas The conference brought together more than medical and lay leaders concerned with providing medical care to small |