Foundation grants funds for Hillyard lead screening project
The Group Health Community Foundation has awarded $10,000 to The Lands Council of Spokane to increase screenings and boost awareness about childhood lead poisoning in Spokane’s Hillyard neighborhood.
The council will hold a public session on the dangers of lead exposure, local voluntary cleanup plans and ways to decrease exposure to lead and other heavy metals at 6 p.m. Aug. 29 at the Northeast Community Center, 4001 N. Cook St.
Because of the lingering risk of greater exposure to lead in the Hillyard neighborhood, the Lands Council is developing an outreach program for residents and health-care providers, and is promoting lead contamination testing of low-income and minority people. Mike Petersen, the group’s executive director, said there has been limited outreach to at-risk children and their families in the neighborhood.
The Hillyard lead site has been ranked as the most hazardous toxic cleanup area in Spokane County, with health warnings listed for children who live there.
Lead is a neurological poison that is most dangerous to growing children. It can cause learning disabilities, behavioral problems, seizures and death. Children from poor families are eight times more likely to suffer from lead poisoning, according to the Lands Council.
The Group Health Community Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the Group Health Cooperative, a nonprofit health-care system that coordinates care and coverage.
Sacred Heart plans $2.8 million radiology department expansion
Sacred Heart Medical Center has launched a $2.8 million expansion of its radiology department to better serve a burgeoning population of patients, according to Mike Kelly, director of facilities.
The three-year project will include the addition of a new ultrasound room, an additional interventional room, a second magnetic resonance imaging machine and a third computed tomography scanner.
Funding for the project is provided through the hospital’s capital construction budget. Completion of the project will help accommodate more than 157,000 exams in 2006 and nearly 160,000 exams in 2007.
Bouten Construction Co. of Spokane will complete the project.
Coeur d’Alene Kiwanis Club supports vision program
The Panhandle Health District and about 900 children in five North Idaho counties will benefit from a $1,000 grant from the Kiwanis Club of Coeur d’Alene.
The recently awarded grant will pay for special film for the health district’s vision screening program that helps detect sight problems in children. Since 2002, the district has screened 1,150 children with the device that detects near- and far-sightedness, astigmatisms, cataracts, lazy eye and more.
The equipment is used primarily on children up to age 3, a group in which vision problems are less apt to be detected because children aren’t very verbal. About 10 percent of children tested are referred to doctors for further evaluation.
For more information about the program, call Theresa Hylsky, a registered nurse, at (208) 415-5100.