Healthcare in Pescadero

There is a problem with access to resources. We have a lot of county barriers in re-building. There are government policies that prevent Pescadero from developing or even re-building stores and services that we have lost. This is a great place for tourists for a day visit and not the best access for locals. We need more items from stores at cheaper prices that are not present in Pescadero. My family has to travel 30-40 minutes outside of the area to go to get bulk necessities. This is a particular challenge economically, as locals have to spend gas money to get to the big stores and we need the variety.

Main Question

How could health care in Pescadero benefit our community?

Data Collection: How are you going to collect the data?

Literature Review: I am going to read 3 primary sources on how to bring better healthcare to rural towns and create an analysis and steps that might work in Pescadero.

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Data: 

Based on the document Healthy Pescadero by Healthy Cities SMC, Pescadero (May 2018)

The percentage of overcrowded households in Pescadero is a lot higher than the percentage in San Mateo County. I want to change this because people deserve some privacy especially when they have to do homework or other types of work that you can do at home.

Also, the percentage of people that don’t live near where they work in Pescadero is 99%. I think that we should try and lower this percentage because people don’t want to go very far just to get to work.

The percentage of people who live under the poverty line is much higher than people who live in San Mateo. I think that people should be able to live happily and not worry about poverty.

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People need health care no matter where you live because if you do not have health care then if you get sick or hurt (unless you know how to perform medical treatment) you will have no one to help you and you will have a higher chance of dying (depending on what your sickness or injury is).

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We need to build a general store and access to health care. Better health care would mean less people having to go really far to get it and it would also help with money because if you get hurt really bad and you need to be transported to a hospital that costs a lot of money and some people do not have that kind of money which means they go into debt. All in all we just need something to help so less people have to worry about health care or money and just live life. We also need more variety so we don’t have to go so far for certain things like cheap food or health care items.

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The challenges of healthcare access are county barriers, the location of health clinics/hospitals, and equipment access. County Barriers are big reasons why healthcare is so hard to get in Pescadero. There used to be a hospital, but, due to county barriers we are not able to rebuild the hospital. The location of healthcare clinics/hospitals is another big reason why healthcare is limited in Pescadero. The location affects us because it takes so long to get to a clinic or hospital. Equipment Access is another reason why healthcare is so hard to get because if we don’t have the equipment then we cannot help ourselves.

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It is hard for pescaderans to get healthcare because we are in an area that is really rural and we cannot go to an area that has a hospital/clinic because the closest to get healthcare is 30-40 minutes away and we cannot build our own clinic or hospital because the county will not allow it. We also do not have the resources to help ourselves because yet again, we cannot build anything new without going through a bunch of hoops and using a lot of money.

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Analysis: 

My data shows that people who live in Pescadero don’t have the same benefits as people that live in San Mateo, but, due to the fact that we live in such a small town we also get some benefits that people in San Mateo do have.

Conclusion:
I learned that even if we don’t have that much, in some ways we have more benefits than people in San Mateo.