Effie Hubbard Ruggles

I think two things. I think my faith - I see my work, both my professional job and all these things that I do, in terms of service. Yeah, it's great that I get paid, don't get me wrong, but I see it in terms of service. That mission, or that need to serve, to make things better - that should always be the goal, to make things better, your community, your city, your school, whatever. I tell my kids this too - whatever you're doing, do it because it makes you happy, do it because it's the right thing to do, do it to serve, and do it to help someone else whenever you can. I grew up in a very nurturing and empowering environment. My mom was like a superpower, and I had other women around me who were just as equally superpower. With that, there's that need and that thing of bringing other women up as well. You can never stand on your own - if you do, the pedestal is not that roomy and you can get knocked off. It's usually much better if you have a podium and you have more people on it, because then you have a stronger foundation.

There's a lot changing with HR1 and just in general where healthcare is going and where need is. We're really in a time where appropriate planning steps are needed to ensure that the public's health remains strong and that individual health remains strong, because there are a lot of factors now that are pushing and pulling. But at the end of the day, people still need to have good health and maintain their health. It's a challenging time, but there's still opportunity. We're going to be 250,000 doctors short in the next 10 years, and already it's hard to get appointments. There are metropolitan deserts as well as rural areas. What really scares me is in terms of what that means for maternal health, because there are so many hospitals that are closing their maternity wards. You have women that have to go 30 miles or more to get to their hospital. The question is, are they even having prenatal care? And if the facility is so much further away, what if there's an emergency? What if that baby and mom are in distress? We already have a Black maternal mortality advantage, but we're really looking at a rural maternal mortality potential in that the access isn't there. How do we support the facilities, or if change is happening, what do we put in place? What kind of solutions do we come up with so that we are still maintaining people's health? Do we have mobile clinics? Do we partner with community centers or churches where a provider or a fairly qualified health center does a roving clinic, kind of like my WIC friends used to do with satellite sites at a church or farmer's market? And then from the programming part, how does the reimbursement work? Does this fit this code? There's a lot to consider, but that's not to say that the answers can't be found. We've got to build a better mousetrap.

I see my work in terms of service. That mission, or that need to serve, to make things better - that should always be the goal. Whatever you're doing, do it because it makes you happy, do it because it's the right thing to do, do it to serve, and do it to help someone else whenever you can. I think in terms of older individuals, just to stay busy and to stay productive and to feel - I was an only child and my parents were older when they had me, so I kind of see things from that lens as well, in terms of that socialization, that community that's needed, and where older individuals kind of fit into that or how they're held to the community or not. I don't think that you can ever stand on your own, and if you do, the pedestal is not that roomy and you can get knocked off. It's usually much better if you have a podium and you have more people on it, because then you have a stronger foundation. There's that need and that thing of bringing other women up as well.