Vaccine program gives kids its best shot

by Danny Gruber C-H staff writer | Posted: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 4:42 pm
LEXINGTON – It probably isn’t a surprise to most people that raising children is an expensive undertaking.

From diapers and formula to prom and senior photos, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated in 2010 it can cost as much as $475,680 to raise a child to the age of 18 and that doesn’t include college costs later.
“It’s important to young families to get a little help,” said Julie Weir, Health Services Director for Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska, the agency which administers “Vaccines for Children,” the immunization program for Dawson County.
According to Weir, the cost of vaccinating a newborn through the age of 18 months is $1,244.02. That cost is the price of the vaccine alone; it does not include any administrative fees or office visit charges.
“Doctors don’t make money on vaccine,” Weir added, stating the price of immunization doses and handling requirements make it costly.

Weir’s clinic receives funding at the federal level through the Centers for Disease Control. Money is distributed to each state and then to clinics within those states.
The immunization program is designed to help children who are under-insured, are Medicaid eligible, are Native American or Native Alaskan or who just don’t have insurance.
The vaccine program serves children ages 2 months to 18 years old, and clients are those who couldn’t get vaccines from a private doctor due to restrictions on those facilities to serve under-insured or uninsured patients, unless those patients are able to pay on a cash basis. Weir said that community health programs step in to cover those uninsured.
“We ask for a $10 administration fee for each vaccine,” Weir said, “but we never turn anyone away.”
Weir and her staff of two part-time nurses and two part-time interpreters come to Lexington on the first and third Mondays of each month to administer vaccines to those who need them. She says her office has a great relationship with the Lexington community and credits Maria Barocio at Community Action Partnership’s Lexington office as key to that relationship.
“She’s a great community resource,” Weir stated. “She knows where to send [clients] for help.”
Barocio also schedules those clients for their appointments with Weir and her nurses, a coordinated effort that is crucial because of the issues of traveling with sometimes-delicate vaccine doses.
At her office in Kearney are a series of refrigerators and freezers, each containing vaccine doses that prevent everything from measles to tetanus to hepatitis. Weir also has a deep freeze with cold packs that are frozen to –20 degrees Celsius and a compact refrigerator that plugs into the cigarette lighter in most vehicles for transport from Kearney to Lexington, twice each month. In the summer months, sometimes it’s once per week.
“On hot day I have to make sure I take enough [ice packs] for safety reasons,” Weir explained. “That’s why it’s a big deal to travel.
“It’s not high-tech, but it’s safe.”
To further insure safety, each of those cold units is equipped with a sensitive temperature gauge connected to a computer that is ready to call Weir should the temperature creep out of the safety zone.
“If it beeps, I have to drop everything and come in,” Weir said, “even if it’s Christmas morning.”
Weir, who is a registered nurse, started working at Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska in 1991 as a volunteer nurse, working a couple of days a month for about 10 years.
After her children graduated from high school and left for college, a second income started looking pretty good. Weir decided to work at the clinic full time.
Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska is one of the partner agencies of the Lexington Area United Way. According to Weir, money received from the LAUW has been a Godsend to her clinic.
Weir explained her office jumped from giving 733 immunizations in 2010 to 1,926 in 2011 because of a state health mandate that children receive an additional chickenpox shot before they could attend school.
“That was a huge increase,” Weir said, and it required extra clinics to get eligible children covered before the start of school.
“The United Way made that possible.”
Weir is grateful for all the monies her program receives, from the federal money to the patients who can pay the $10 suggested fee to the help received from the United Way.
“It means the world to my program,” Weir said, “because every dime counts.”
The Lexington office of Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska is located at 931 West 7th. For more information about the immunization program, call Barocio at (308) 324-4219 or Weir at (308) 865-5675.