The hospital is offering a special on laboratory tests in the run-up to its annual Health Fair next month.
Through March 24, Wrangell Medical Center is discounting a variety of screenings.
These include a comprehensive health profile, which measures one’s blood count, cholesterol, and other components in a coronary risk
profile. Other tests are for prostate specific antigen, which can indicate prostate cancer; Hemoglobin-A1C, used for diagnosing
pre-diabetes and catching the disease in its early stages; thyroid stimulating hormone; and Vitamin D.
One of the fair’s new focuses will be on cancer, both with its treatment and preventative measures.
“We’re going to put together a special booth having to do with cancer,” explained WMC outreach coordinator Kris Reed.
Cancer-related deaths in the community over the past year have highlighted what has become the state’s leading cause of death. In 2015, 962 Alaskans succumbed to various forms – a mortality rate of 152.9 per 100,000 people dying each year. On a national level, mortality related to cancer is slightly higher, but death related to heart disease remains the country’s biggest killer. Reed explained colorectal cancer rates have been rising among younger people as well.
Early screenings can be administered at the hospital during normal operating hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each weekday. After the 24th, the laboratory will have a week to prepare results, which will be distributed at the fair.
“We’re encouraging people to come early because the last week is always really hectic,” said Reed. Last year 452 blood draw participants together ordered more than 1,600 tests.
Two copies of each result will be given to recipients, one for their own records and an additional one for their preferred provider or designated caregiver. Further copies can be obtained afterward at the hospital’s front desk.
Also new at the fair this year will be the hospital’s speech therapist, who will be conducting free hearing tests in the Nolan Center’s small theater, just to the left inside the lobby. The area should be removed enough from the pell-mell of booths and conversations to allow for more accurate assessments.
Also new will be the consolidation of several tables, in the past run by Southeast Alaska Rural Health Consortium and Alaska Island Community Services. The two entities are currently moving forward with a merger, planned to be completed by the month’s end.
Other tables will feature a variety of programs and activities, including the Wrangell Horse Club, hospital nursing activities, Wrangell Parks and Recreation volunteer maintenance project, and group exercise startup Wrangell Fitness.
Always a favorite, tykes can bring their stuffed toys to the fair’s Teddy Bear Clinic, which helps introduce children to healthcare processes. It takes some of the mystery out of visits to the doctor, and so makes it a little less traumatic of an experience.
Youngsters can also compete to win one of two bicycles, purchased by the hospital for its annual raffle. To participate, an informational scavenger hunt is completed and then entered. The drawing comes toward the fair’s end.
There’s something in it for adults as well, with a similar hunt allowing them to enter in for a pair of round-trip tickets donated by Alaska Airlines. The coach tickets can convey travelers anywhere across the airline’s system, except for Cuba.
The fair will be run inside the Nolan Center on April 1 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. – slightly longer hours than last year, to better accommodate the lunchtime crowd. Last year people still showed up after noon, finding fair tables already folded and being stacked away.
“We’re trying to see if that will help,” Reed said of the new times.
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