health care

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.

Following the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, those in Wyoming are wondering what happens next. During the last legislative session, Wyoming lawmakers passed a so called "trigger bill" that bans abortions in the state except in the case of rape, incest, or the possibility of death or serious bodily injury for the mother, which likely would have to be certified by doctors.

According to abortion advocates, Wyoming is already a state with very limited access to abortion services. A Jackson clinic is currently the only facility that provides abortion services in the state. Women in eastern Wyoming already had to travel outside of the state for abortion services.

Early Wednesday morning, Julie Burkhart got a call she never really thought she was going to get. The building where Wellspring Health Access is located was set on fire. Police had arrived on the scene and extinguished it but there was substantial smoke damage.

In the past couple of weeks, the Memorial Hospital of Carbon County in Rawlins announced they will no longer be providing labor and child delivery services in June. That was the second hospital to make the decision within a month. South Lincoln Hospital District in Kemmerer also cut those services.

The Rawlins hospital will be ending its labor and child delivery services on June 15. This is a result of the pandemic putting the hospital in a financial crunch.

Hospital administrators say they are losing money on their obstetrics programs. But many are keeping these wings open anyway to answer a dire community need.

Michelle Gutierrez pointed out pamphlets on the wall in the waiting room of the North West Healthcare Center in Cody."There are pamphlets about things like birth control and STDs, what else do we have? How to talk to your parents. How to talk to your kids. Safe sex and then, like, violence, date rape, drugs, things like that," she said as she showed me.

A bill further criminalizing some drug use during pregnancy has advanced out of the House Judiciary Committee and will head to the House floor. Mental health professionals warned the bill would actually hurt pregnant mothers and their children.