The Mound Bayou-base Delta Health Center will sponsor a free Covid-19 test site in Indianola on Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and again on Thursday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
According to Adoris Turner, director of external relations, the clinic is free to those who cannot pay. "We're just trying to offer the service, where anyone whether they are able to pay or not can receive the service whether they have a doctor's referral or not and whether they have symptoms or not," he said.
Turner said that because the Delta Health Center is a “for-profit” organization they will go through the process of determining if a person is able to pay. "If you have insurance, we will use your insurance. If you don't have insurance and you don't have the ability to pay, it's no barrier to you at all for receiving the service."
Although they will check for insurance coverage, Turner added, "There won't be a bill sent, anything like that, the question is just--do you have insurance, yes? We'll log the insurance, if you don't have insurance and you can't pay, then we just keep moving,” he said.
Turner emphasized that there is no deterrent, nothing that would keep a person who wants to be tested from being tested. He said the situation is simply that there are a lot of people out there trying to be available and serve others, but DHC doesn't want them to "inadvertently infect someone by not knowing their status."
Turner said the Mississippi Delta is already a distressed area when it comes down to the number of physicians per capita and access to quality healthcare. “So, then when you start getting these numbers around those people who are impacted on an exponentially high rate by the Coronavirus, you look at African-American, you look at people with pre-existing conditions, underlying conditions and we know that high obesity rates are prevalent here in the Delta.”
Turner continued,”Also you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol all of those kinds of things make the citizen in this area potentially high risking and when you add the standard of having to have symptoms prior to being able to receive testing, we were finding that a lot of our citizens were not being tested and were being sent home and then developing Coronavirus and we know that by the time people have developed it they have already shared it with and spread it among their family members, their co-workers, their congregations, things of that nature.”
Turner said knowledge is key. “We offer this service to make sure that people can know their status and so we can kind of flatten the curve. That way we can keep situations from growing like wildfire,” he said.
Turner added that an outbreak at a major employer or a fast food restaurant would turn into a situation that nobody in this area wants.
Turner said DHC has done this type of setup twice so far and according to him it has been very professional and very thorough. He said the turnaround time on results from the testing is usually about 48 hours.
He stressed that individual privacy will be honored and that when the test results are complete the person will be contacted and if for some reason the person cannot be contacted DHC will notify the health department officials so that they can assist in contacting the individual.
“We don't have to disclose the person personally, but we do have to disclose all of our results to the state and to the CDC, everyone is required to,” he said. Turner said the data consists of the number of tests provided, the number of negative cases and the number of positive cases.
He noted that initially only persons with symptoms were being tested; however, since tests are now more readily available other persons are now eligible to received testing without symptoms.
Turner assured the credibleness of the test noting that they had partnered with two reputable laboratories to provide the results. He said the tests are very accurate when the process is handled properly.
Delta Health Center has facilities in the following places: Mound Bayou ( Medical and Dental), Cleveland (medical) two locations in Greenville (medical), Hollandale (medical and Dental), Mayersville (medical), Rolling Fork (medical), Indianola (medical) and Moorhead (medical).
“Additionally we have seven school-based clinics all within the SCCSD--Drew, Ruleville, Sunflower, Moorhead, Inverness and two in Indianola at Carver and Lockard,” he said.
