Nonprofit working to remedy the healthcare gap | News
Helping residents in rural communities live a healthier life has been a labor of love for a South Carolina native who started a nonprofit that focuses on getting health care to people living throughout the state’s rural areas.
Now, Laurie Bailey-Thomas’s work includes being the eyes and ears for state health officials who want get COVID-19 vaccines in as many arms as possible.
After returning to South Carolina seven years ago, Bailey-Thomas, a registered nurse living in Cross, began to work on helping rural residents get access to health care resources and information on healthy living.
She later founded Divine Health Education, a nonprofit in Berkeley County. While Bailey-Thomas still works full time as a registered nurse, her spare time revolves around a mission that includes a lot of driving and a heavy dose of social media.
“This is really my passion,” Bailey-Thomas said. “In the evening hours and on my off days and on the weekends, we go out into the rural communities and we go out and we talk to people about health and find out what their needs are.”
Before the pandemic the work was all about traveling to get the word out on healthy eating habits, helping people find doctors and medical resources and grooming local youth for the medical profession. It is all an effort to eliminate the healthcare disparities in rural communities.
“People may go to the doctor and they get a diagnoses,” she said, “but they don’t really have time on that visit to get a clear understanding of the disease they are dealing with or the medication or the diet modification and lifestyle changes — and that’s why I was driven to start this organization.”
But nothing highlighted the disparities in healthcare like COVID-19. Canvassing rural pockets like an embedded frontline worker, she began reaching out to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, reporting back to the health agency what she was seeing to coordinate and help get more people tested.
Now the focus in on vaccinations. At the beginning of July, she started crisscrossing to and from rural communities in Berkeley County to get the word out about a DHEC-Pfizer vaccination event on July 10 at the Cross Community Center. The event will allow those 12 and older to get a shot. It’s a day that may not have happened if not for Bailey-Thomas’ persistence.
“I noticed some in certain rural pockets that don’t have access,” she said. “They had initial access, but it kind of dwindled off. And then I noticed that the parents were trying to get their children vaccinated and when they got scheduled and got to the site, they didn’t have the Pfizer (vaccine) to fulfill 12 and older children.”
She said these events are just the beginning, in a state that has some of lowest vaccination numbers in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Another hurdle is informing the rural public that the shots are safe while quashing the mountain of misinformation that is out there about the virus and vaccines.
“A lot people are hearing, just hearing from other nonmedical professionals, they’re concerned about what they consider to be possible side effects of getting vaccinated,” she said. “The way I explain it to people is, it is the body’s natural response.”
The vaccination event in Cross is at the Cross Community Center on 1690 Old Highway 6, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, July, 10. Baily-Thomas is asking the public to just show up, no prior registration is needed.
“You’ll never get everyone vaccinated, unfortunately, but the more people who get vaccinated, the safer our region will be,” she said.
