Harris Regional Hospital and Swain Community Hospital have embarked on exciting futures for our hospitals and communities.  

Early this month, we unveiled new names and logos for our hospitals that highlight our connection to Duke LifePoint Healthcare. While this was the first visual representation of our relationship with Duke LifePoint, the benefits of our becoming part of its system began several months ago.

Haywood Regional Medical Center’s recent decision to purchase the Evergreen Family Medical Center in Canton will keep Evergreen employees from losing their primary care physician and will expand health care services to the entire community. 

Since Evergreen announced in January that it would close the clinic and pharmacy at the end of March, Evergreen employees and their families have been protesting in hopes of finding a way to keep them open.

More than 400 Macon County employees and their families will see a reduction in health care coverage and an increase in their contributions beginning July 1 after commissioners agreed to change the county’s health insurance plan and provider.

Harris Regional Hospital and Swain County Hospital have finally settled on new names following the purchase of the hospitals by Duke LifePoint Healthcare last year, but the change announced this week is a minor one.

Evergreen Family Medical Center in Canton is no longer making new appointments for patients as it prepares to shutter its doors March 31.

The new contract Mission Health signed with The Blood Connection for blood products will affect the American Red Cross’ collections in Western North Carolina, but Red Cross employees and volunteers hope donors will remain loyal to their cause.

Loyal blood donors will no longer see the iconic red cross on the side of the blood mobile next time they give blood at one of Mission Health’s 17 facilities in Western North Carolina.

Mission has signed a new contract with The Blood Connection, a regional blood bank out of Piedmont, South Carolina, to be its sole provider of blood for the next three years.

SEE ALSO: Blood donors show loyalty to Red Cross

Lana Quinn of Waynesville has lost friends, been called crazy and was turned away from a pediatrician’s office because of her decision to not vaccinate her three sons.

Waynesville resident Janet Presson’s son was diagnosed with autism at 2 years old, shortly after he received his scheduled vaccines. She isn’t against vaccinations completely but feels like small children are over-immunized at a young age.

By Gwang S. Han • Guest Columnist

Obstetrics is the branch of medicine dealing with parturition, including care before and after delivery but also concerned with reproduction of society in a broader sense. The word of “obstetrics,” derived from Latin, means midwife, woman assisting the parturient, or the woman who stood by the parturient. Midwifery is a much older term than obstetrics and originated in England, being used since 1483. The British health care system has a long tradition with midwifery even during the Elizabethan era and allows more power and wider territory for midwives to maneuver and provide their own style of care.

The most affluent, prominent charity in Haywood County has reinvented its mission but hopes to remain on donors’ radar as it moves toward a larger goal: improving health care in the community.