#HealthierMO
At our very core, we’re all human. We all laugh, we all cry, we all love, and we all need hope — hope for a healthier tomorrow. #HealthierMO is working to assure every Missourian has access to foundational public health programs and services. In the summer of the second year of the pandemic, they invited us to collect photostories across the state highlighting gaps in our healthcare system, the urgent need for change, and the passion to create a brighter tomorrow for all Missourians.
Photo by Ava Mandoli
Gary Zaborac
Director of Public Health, Clay County Public Health Center
“The most impactful experience that inspired me to do the work I do happened at my first director’s job when I was at a small, rural health department. There was a phone call from a staff member who described the deplorable circumstances an elderly couple was living in. They said, ‘We want you to go down there.’ Any rural health department employee will tell you this — you are a jack of all trades. You wear multiple hats; you have multiple roles. You might be the director of environmental health and still do inspections. You might be a nurse supervisor and still do clinics. I happened to be the former. And I said, ‘Okay, I’ll go down there…’”
Photo by Ava Mandoli
Megan and Elana
Friends
“I was 20 years old, and I’d gotten injured during a soccer game. I was having trouble walking, and my back was in constant pain. I dealt with back pain before just from playing sports for so long. My trainer gave me two options. He was like, ‘You’re either going to go to the doctor to get checked out or I can send you to a chiropractor.’ I’ve never been one to sit out of a game. So I was like, ‘I’m going to the chiropractor, because the chiropractor is not going to tell me I can’t play, the doctor is.’ So I went, and it was going well for a few weeks. Then he popped my neck, and like five days later when I was driving, my vertebral artery busted and it caused a stroke…”
Photo by Ava Mandoli
Ashley Wegner
Section Chief of Health Planning and Policy, Clay County Public Health Center
“America is like, ‘Everyone just take care of yourselves and we’ll be fine.’ But when it comes to things like a pandemic, that’s a very flawed stance because your decisions impact me. The individualistic mindset of this country has been one of our biggest obstacles within COVID. We have community members coming to us and saying, ‘We just want choice. We don’t want to be told, ‘This is your only option, or don’t participate.’ When you look at the way other countries have responded to universal mitigation measures, there isn’t the same level of backlash, because the sense of community is different…”
Photo by Ava Mandoli
Ruth Sawyer
Family Caregiver
“I take care of my family and nobody takes care of me. It sucks. But what are you gonna do? With my husband’s health issues and having four kids, I don’t have the choice to not be okay. I rely on my mom for support. She’s in Iowa. I’m on the phone with her every day. We talk about whatever. I’m one of those people who will call just to say, ‘Oh, I found an interesting bug. I’ll call you later!’ We’ve always been close. And once I had kids, I needed someone to lean on. The nice thing is, she and my dad are both retired. I can call whenever I need to. When my husband left his job, I was gonna be the primary breadwinner for a while, and that was scary. I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for a good 11 and a half years. Then my husband was like, ‘Hey, the $75,000 a year job with the health insurance benefits — I’m not gonna have anymore.’ Everybody was fine with the transition except me. But, again, what was I gonna do? Kids have gotta eat.”
Photo by Ava Mandoli
Amanda Ruback
Community Outreach Coordinator, Missouri Poison Center
“I was a nurse on the Poison Help Line, and my oldest kid was probably seven at the time. I wasn’t working that night, but I turned the corner and saw his mouth glowing. He bit into a glow stick. The room was dark because we were watching TV and his whole mouth, the couch, and the floor were glowing. I knew as a poison nurse that it’s not a big deal because it’s a pretty low-risk item. But for a moment, your mom panic acts up and your training goes out the window. You know how to respond, but you’re still human. And it’s like, ‘Oh my goodness, what do I do?’ But then your training kicks in: ‘Okay, let’s be calm. Let’s work this through.’”
Photo by Ava Mandoli
Shawnee Douglas
Administrator, Washington County Health Department
“The hospital, the Ambulance District, local government, partners, schools, FQHCs, the health department, all united to attack COVID as a team. We did weekly meetings, then it went to monthly, and now we're back to weekly where we break down the current issues into smaller pieces. Every partner brings something to the table, and we’re working together to get the community vaccinated and get resources out. Our health department was doing vaccine clinics before they were cool. We were at the Ambulance District giving 800 or 900 vaccines a day at the drive-through. No one had to wait and there was no chaos. The first mass clinic we had, I’d say 65% to 70% of the people who came weren’t even from Washington County. They drove miles to find an available vaccine. Our locals were hesitant to take it, but we were busy giving vaccines to people from everywhere else.”
Photo by Ava Mandoli
Justin Duncan
Chief Executive Officer, Washington County Ambulance District
“Before you pass judgment, before you form an opinion, just walk a mile in the shoes of a healthcare provider. I don’t care if it’s rounding in an ICU, rural hospital, emergency department, medical-surgical floor, or EMS or mobile healthcare system. Just walk a mile. Because we’re all having to do things we never dreamed we would be doing.”
Photo by Ava Mandoli
Dr. Jeffrey Tindall and Connie Tindall
Provider and Office Manager, Midwest Rural Convenient Care
“When you go to medical school, you have to write an essay on why you want to be a doctor. His grandpa was a little hometown doctor, so my son wrote, ‘I want to be a hometown doctor like my grandpa. I want to take care of people from the time they’re born until they die.’ We take one-day-olds all the way to 99-year-olds and older. And we even go to their funerals. We know about our patients’ lives. They’re our family. It’s not a cold exchange where you go in this room, you see a different nurse practitioner every time, and you finally see a doctor years later. I see our patients in Walmart, and they give me a hug. I don’t know that all rural health clinics are that way. Some of them have four or five nurse practitioners, you see a different one every time, and you don’t build up that relationship. But my son’s very caring and he listens and talks about people’s kids and their dogs and their lives. So I would say we’re kind of unique in that sense.”
Photo by Ava Mandoli
Rudy Zuellig
Flight Paramedic, Air Evac Lifeteam
“The most rewarding day of my job was New Year’s Day a couple of years ago when we had a guy who held a gun to his head. This was right after I went through one of my own battles. Everything he said were some of the same things I had said, like, ‘I got no one to turn to. There’s nothing left for me to live for.’ I sat with him for 45 minutes before we drove to the hospital. I said, ‘You’re not alone. Everything that you’re telling me, I promise you, I just went through.’ It took some convincing for him to understand I wasn’t kidding and I gained his trust. We ended up going to Phelps County Hospital in Rolla and had a good 30-minute talk with him about what services were available, what he could expect, and how he can get better. I gave him my number and said, ‘I want you to call me when this is all said and done and you feel like you’re in a place to talk.’ He called me about six months later and told me, ‘I’m doing okay. I’m holding a job. I’m getting my kids back.’ Knowing I saved a life, not necessarily in the way people think paramedics save lives, was a cool feeling. Knowing he wasn’t afraid to open up to me, and then seeing what he transformed his life into, was probably one of the biggest pats on the backs I’ve ever received in this field.”
Photo by Ava Mandoli
Jamie Wehmeyer
Coordinator, KC Northland Strong, and Owner of Jamie Wehmeyer, LLC
“My life was profoundly changed in 2017 when my 17-year-old son, Jake, was murdered. And that’s when I also recognized how our communities were not doing enough to address trauma people experience. I had always been the person working in the system, I was never the person who was having to go through the system.”
Photo by Ava Mandoli
Jenifer Ferguson
Chief Nursing Officer, Washington County Memorial Hospital
“Rural communities are held to the same standards with fewer resources. Here in our hospital, we don’t have a large float pool of nurses to pull from if somebody’s sick. We know a lot of our community people aren’t going to go to St. Louis. If they can’t receive the care here, they’re not going to go elsewhere. And that can be for a variety of reasons. Maybe they’re not comfortable driving to St. Louis because they don’t have a reliable vehicle. We’ve got a lot of farmers in our community, and farming is a 24/7, 365 job. Or they don’t have anybody to take care of their animals. We hear that a lot: ‘Who’s going to feed my dog?’ We’ve even had staff members take care of pets for people. So there are challenges, but we’re not afraid to work hard. We’re just tired and we’re trying to do the best we can.”
Photo by Ava Mandoli
Rachel Warden, RN, and Heather Johnson, LPN
Public Health Nurses, Washington County Health Department
“Personally, I’m a crier. Through some of the pandemic, I’ve definitely shed a lot of tears. But it’s good sometimes to let yourself feel those emotions, let yourself have a good cry, let yourself realize this is unprecedented and you are making a difference. You’re the one who’s interrupting the transmission of disease. Sometimes you’re the one who’s calling the ambulance for the sick person, or you’re the one telling them you want them to get help. I’m dealing with people who are very scared. And I realize I’m the one offering them some hope or peace. I think realizing that in itself just helps me to be emotionally okay.”