While recent federal policy announcements have created concern and confusion because no formal implementation guidelines have been issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, no changes are coming to services or policies at local health centers, the release said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are committed to serving every individual who walks through our doors with compassion and respect,\u201d said Mouhanad Hammami, director of County Health. \u201cPublic health depends on everyone feeling safe enough to seek care. Our health centers are safe places where patient privacy and rights are protected.\u201d<\/p>\n
County health centers\u00a0do not inquire about immigration status, and\u00a0will continue to operate under current policies and procedures to provide safe, equitable, and confidential services to all patients.<\/p>\n
County Health also stated that the department is exploring alternative ways to expand access to care for all\u00a0families, especially to immigrant and indigenous communities.<\/p>\n
Health care centers offer a range of options including a Walk-in Clinic in Santa Maria, Behavioral Health Telehealth\u00a0appointments, and Mixteco voiceovers for Mixteco-speaking populations.<\/p>\n
Residents who have concerns about attending appointments in person due to recent events, are asked to contact County Health. In some cases, phone appointments can be made available.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Santa Maria Health Care Center, 805-346-7230Lompoc Health Care Center, 805-737-6400Santa Barbara Health Care Center,\u00a0805-681-5488Franklin Health Care Center, 805-568-2099Carpinteria Health Care Center, 805-560-1050<\/p>\n
Information from this release was provided by the\u00a0County of Santa Barbara Health Department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While recent federal policy announcements have created concern and confusion because no formal implementation guidelines have been issued…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[18564,18562,97,252,18565,7544,253,983,686,18567,1903,18563,2603,18569,18568,18566],"class_list":["post-20469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-county-health","tag-county-news","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-health-economics","tag-health-sciences","tag-healthcare","tag-local-news","tag-medicine","tag-mouhanad-hammami","tag-public-services","tag-santa-barbara-county-health-department","tag-social-issues","tag-social-policy","tag-social-programs","tag-telehealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}