health care

A free clinic has opened in Lander. It will help provide basic healthcare needs for the uninsured population in Fremont County.

The funds come from the State Loan and Investment Board in the form of grants, which will allow for more comprehensive and intensive mental and behavioral health services to be offered locally to Sheridan and Johnson counties. The triage facility will be created by retrofitting existing hospital facilities to be better able to care for those experiencing different medical issues.

Cody Regional Health is opening a clinic in Basin, which is about 60 miles east of Cody. This will be the first facility that the hospital owns outside of Cody.Stephanie Kearney, the hospital’s chief ambulatory officer, said this gives them a lot more flexibility than a lease scenario where they show up a couple times a month for another healthcare provider.

A Basin nursing home has closed because the hospital that owned the it didn’t have the money to keep subsidizing the care center.The cost of operating Three River Healths’ Bonnie Bluejacket Memorial Nursing Home for the past six years has been more than the revenue earned.

A mobile healthcare unit hopes to open in Casper by the end of the year. The unit will be operated by Wellspring Health Access -- the same organization that was planning to open a healthcare facility that would provide abortion services. But someone set the clinic on fire back in May before it could open.

When a nurse comes to a new mother’s home to help with nutrition and developmental milestones, it’s called a home visit. A federal program funds home visits for low-income families in the state. But as reporter Madelyn Beck found out for Wyofile, that program may lose its funding before the end of the year. Beck said there’s a bill proposed to increase funding but it hasn’t advanced. She said groups have been concerned for a while now.

Nursing homes are struggling financially, which has led to many closing nationally. A Greybull care center is considering closing as well. But it may have found a temporary bandage.

Several states are fighting to limit abortion access. But limited access will increase already high costs of traveling to seek abortions for many in the Mountain West.

Multiple fire stations in Teton County are in disrepair to the extent of needing full replacement as demand for their services increases.

In the lead up to the 2022 primary, WyoFile and Wyoming Public Media teamed up to ask Wyomingites about their top concerns.