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Redwood Coast Medical Services (RCMS), in collaboration with Coast Life Support District, South Coast Volunteer Fire Department, and many amazing community volunteers, has administered over 6,000 COVID19 vaccines to our community.
Recently it has been increasingly difficult to find individuals wanting FIRST DOSE COVID-19 vaccines – indicating we may be close to the end of needing mass vaccination clinics. RCMS will continue to provide promised second doses to all patients who need them. This vaccine clinic will help us determine remaining community interest in first vaccines. If there is limited interest, we may discontinue/ limit mass vaccination clinics, and investigate other options for continuing to immunize our community – including limited scheduled visits during clinic hours. We are aware that there are still many eligible community members who have declined vaccination, or who are still hesitating to get the vaccine. We strongly encourage you to consider vaccination for many reasons, including:
If you still need your first COVID19 vaccine and you are over 18 years old, or know someone who still needs one, please sign up/help them sign up for this May 8th clinic. Community interest will guide our decision to continue or end these mass vaccination events.  COVID-19 TESTING
Friday April 30 9 AM to 12 PM 451 School Street (Veteran’s Building/City Hall) in Point Arena This will be free event and the testing is first come-first served. Registration is required at http://lhi.care/covidtesting. No appointments are being taken but you will need a client number to test. If you already have a client number be sure to bring it with you. NOTE: This is not a drive-thru event. Please park on the north side of the building. For any questions, please call Point Arena City Hall at (707) 882-2122.  With the robust participation of our community, Mendonoma Health Alliance, in partnership with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department, collected an astonishing 110 pounds of unused, unwanted or expired medications during our event held on April 22, 2021, in coordination with the National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. Thanks to your efforts, potentially dangerous unused drugs were removed from our community. The successful event raised awareness for the dangers of addiction and overdose deaths and the results clearly demonstrate the need for future take-backs as a tool in our fight against the opioid crisis.
Mendonoma Health Alliance will continue to hold take-back events throughout our service area (Irish Beach to Timber Cove) to provide easy, no-cost opportunities to remove medicines from your homes that are highly susceptible to misuse and theft. To learn more about our work and our strategies to support our community's fight against addiction, please visit our website at mendonomahealth.org/addiction.  Addiction is not a choice and it doesn’t define people.
Gualala, California, April 23, 2021 –Mendonoma Health Alliance, in collaboration with the Safe Rx Mendocino Opioid Safety Coalition, will launch a county-wide campaign to eradicate stigma associated with addiction, to begin on April 26, 2021. Substance and Opioid Use Disorder have become one of the nation’s leading health disparities, impacting the social, emotional and physical well-being of individuals experiencing addiction. State-wide, overdose fatalities in California have risen by 15% in the last three years –faster than the national average. In 2019, Mendocino and Lake Counties outpaced every other county in California for the adjusted rate of overdose deaths and more than doubled the state average of 19.6 deaths per 100,000 residents (1). Isolated communities within Mendocino County have also felt the impact, with places like Point Arena experiencing the highest opioid-related overdose death rate per capita in the County and State in 2016, and the small unincorporated town of Gualala ranking number one in opioid-related overdose deaths per capita in the County and State in 2019 (2). Mendonoma Health Alliance and the Safe Rx Mendocino Coalition recognize that some of the greatest barriers to people seeking treatment for their health condition are the systematic and social stigmas and biases that have been embedded in the culture and history of our communities, healthcare systems, and criminal justice systems. Together, with our partners county-wide, we are taking a stand against stigma so that individuals experiencing addiction feel supported and encouraged to reach out for help when they are ready to seek wellness. In doing so, our agencies worked with Trim Tab Media to developed a media campaign to highlight the inspiring stories of local residents in long-term recovery who have become beacons of hope for people struggling with addiction. The campaign also works to highlight public health professionals, clinical providers and community health workers who work everyday to end stigma and create paths to recovery. The campaign will launch on Monday, April 26, with video content on the websites of partner organizations and spread widely throughout social media. The campaign will be further promoted in print; on physical ad spaces throughout the county, such as MTA buses, billboards and banners; and on radio stations county-wide. For more information about the campaign or how to participate, contact Micheline White, Executive Director of Mendonoma Health Alliance. Beginning April 26, the campaign will be live on www.mendonomahealth.org/addiction and can be followed on social media by searching for #OvercomingAddiction.This campaign was made possible by funding provided bythe Rural Communities Opioid Response Program, a program of the federal Health Resources and Services Administration; the Coalition for Gang Awareness and Prevention’s Drug Free Communities Grant, administered by the Centers for Disease Control; and the Arlene & Michael Rosen Foundation. We can overcome addiction, together. 1. Policy Brief, Trends in California, California health Policy Strategies, LLC. March 2021; https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.109/zb0.123.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Policy-Brief-Overdose-Trends-3.2020-1.pdf 2. California Opioid Overdose Surveillance Dashboard, California Department of Public Health, https://skylab.cdph.ca.gov/ODdash/
 Redwood Coast Medical Services (RCMS) will host another community COVID-19 vaccine clinic this weekend:
Date: Saturday, April 10, 2021 (8:00 AM to 2:00 PM) Location: South Coast Fire Department building at 39125 Church Street in Gualala This an invitation-only clinic. Do not come to this event unless you have received an invitation. This event is for both first dose and second dose vaccines. RCMS is in the process of sending out invitations to this vaccination clinic. If you received your invitation, please bring your photo ID to the event. The event will be for community members in Health Department defined tier groups: anyone 50 years of age or older; people with specific chronic medical conditions (including cancer, heart disease, lung disease on oxygen, diabetes and morbid obesity); and people employed in certain professions (health care workers, first responders, lodging workers, restaurant/grocery store workers, caregivers, childcare workers, school/education personnel, agriculture workers, utility workers and mass transit workers). If you are awaiting your second Moderna vaccine, and it has been more than 4 weeks from your first vaccine, and you have not yet received an invitation, please contact RCMS for an appointment at COVID19@RCMS-healthcare.org . Also, please also check your email junk/spam folder to make sure it has not gone in there accidentally. If you have not yet registered to receive your vaccine locally with RCMS please do so at this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KYGPTVS (ENGLISH) https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RR7XJMN (SPANISH) If you have registered with us but have since received your vaccine elsewhere please email COVID19@RCMS-healthcare.org so that we can remove you from our list. Thank you to Coast Life Support District, South Coast Volunteer Fire Department, local first responders and our community volunteers for assisting at these events.  Free COVID-19 Testing Event in Gualala on April 16
This is a Mendocino County/OptumServe event. First come, first served. Please register at LHI to get your patient number and then come to the event. https://lhi.care/covidtesting If you already have an LHI patient number, please bring it and come to the event. This event is open to anyone, including those who have been vaccinated. These testing clinics are important to collect data that impacts County and State reopening. |
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