This has a little tube for you
to collect your stool sample with.
As a patient navigator within Eastern Iowa Health Center,
I work to help bring awareness
about colorectal cancer,
and the importance of screening throughout our community.
We're asking patients
to bring something into the office
that just kind of seems
"I don't know if I really want to do that"
or take the time off of work.
Sometimes our patients can't actually get to the
bus stop due to mobility reasons.
They don't always understand the
routes due to literacy reasons.
Sometimes the cost is something
that not every patient can always afford.
So NTS stands for Neighborhood Transportation Service.
NTS began as a program
that was designed to help
people access transportation.
That program has expanded from
what was in one small community
with one van to a fleet of vehicles
servicing the entire metro area,
here in Cedar Rapids.
Horizons and NTS has provided
Eastern Iowa Health Center with
free transportation services to our
current immigrant and refugee populations.
We're making every effort to provide assistance to remove barriers
assistance to remove barriers,
if that's a cultural barrier, a sensitivity barrier
that we may not be familiar with.
So in terms of the Afghani refugees,
we've been working to accommodate
the need for a chaperon for
women who are riding,
or the need for female drivers.
One of the areas that we're still hoping to get
improved services for is our unhoused population.
Currently, that population doesn't
always have that great family support
to follow up with the procedures.
So we have been trying to discuss
and come up with various
different ways to help overcome that barrier.
Our partnership with the CDC has been phenomenal.
The CDC has been really helpful
in providing pre-cancer screenings for colorectal cancer.
The way that is working is really kind of amazing.
The CDC has provided money
to Iowa Department of Public Health,
and from there, it's come to
Eastern Iowa Health Center.
Removing barriers to improve
health equity is incredibly important
because it's important for a community.