Bull!!!

As I sit in the hospital tonight, wires stuck to me and tubes sticking out of me, I get the response from the Virginia Department of Health. A "canned" response at best:

The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) understands the concerns expressed by Mr. Jack Starry and others, regarding the closure of the Child Development Clinic in Winchester.

VDH has a longstanding commitment to providing quality assessments to meet the pediatric development needs of Virginia's children. As noted in previous communications, VDH has historically provided pediatric developmental assessment services through a statewide system that has included both local health department clinics and private contractors.

As the funding for programs has tightened, VDH has been identifying opportunities to continue to meet pediatric developmental needs in the most efficient and cost-effective manner. In conducting an evaluation of our services, we determined that virtually all of the children seen have some form of insurance; Medicaid, FAMIS, or commercial insurance. We also found that our contractors were seeing significantly more children, when compared with the local health department Child Development Evaluation model. This is in part due to the contractors having greater flexibility in staffing and in their tailoring the evaluation to the specific needs of each individual child. As we examined the relative productivity of the different models, we determined that the program goals of serving as many children as possible and identifying children with developmental delays as young as possible would be best served by transitioning to a contractor-based model.

While we recognize that this transition will mean that some families will need to travel greater distances to complete evaluations, we believe that this is the best option to maintain the financial viability of the child development centers while continuing to maintain the highest quality of care.

VDH is committed to assuring the ongoing quality and accessibility of child development services and we will be monitoring the performance of our contractors on a quarterly basis to assure that they continue to meet the standards that VDH and their constituents have come to expect."

Lauri Kalanges, MD MPH Acting Director, Office of Family Health Services Deputy Director, Office of Family Health Services Virginia Department of Health

So...
1. I want to see the budget BEFORE and AFTER these cuts were made. I want to see what was passed over in favor of the decision to cut the CDC.

2. Speaking of cuts... You were told to make cuts, but not told where or what to cut. So you went for the special needs children first?

Can you say "heartless"?

This isn't over. Not by a long shot...