Health disparities task force work could end
Capitol Report for dailies for week of March 7, 2006
By Jim Campbell
OPA Capitol News Bureau
The state's health is clearly unacceptable and "clearly, disparities between population groups contribute significantly to our problem."
A task force that has worked two years on that problem, defined in a State Board of Health report, dies July 1 unless it is resurrected in a conference committee report on another bill. Two bills, that would have extended its life and provided an integrated data capacity, failed to get a hearing in the House.
Rep. Opio Toure, D-Oklahoma City, task force co-chairman, said he believed if Senate Bill 1632 extending the work until 2008 "had gone to the floor, it would have passed."
"I don't think the work we've done is wasted," he told the panel May 5.
He said he understood a problem with the data bill was its cost and that it might be possible to have the work done by the State Health Department without a fiscal impact.
"I want to be very careful not to inject partisanship into our efforts," Toure said.
The Rev. Chester Pfyffer of Oklahoma City, a United Methodist minister, said members of his cultural competency subcommittee were "inflamed" by the possibility that their work might be discontinued.
The minister attended the Senate debate on the bill and heard senators ask what cultural competency means and dismiss the idea that disparities exist among ethnic and socio-economic groups. 
"Lack of awareness at that level," he said, was astonishing.
The Board of Health report called cultural competency a key issue affecting disparities, saying it should be an element of training for health professionals.
A national issue, it was recently discussed in a Washington Post article concerning primarily the Asian population. It related that when a Chinese patient tells a doctor he has "fire in the mouth," for example, a doctor culturally attuned to that population will know the man has a fever.
Carter McBride of Oklahoma City, chairman of the health access subcommittee, said denial of a disparities problem was difficult to understand when it has been highlighted year after year in the dismal reports on the state of the state's health.
"They just don't want to do anything until it becomes an emergency; out of sight out of mind," McBride said.
The task force is required to submit a final report by July 1.
Rep. Doug Cox, R-Grove, the legislature's only physician, supported the legislation.
"I was surprised it didn't get a hearing," he said earlier. "It was a good bill. It was not a partisan bill. There definitely are disparities among ethnic groups, socio-economic groups, between the rich and poor.
"I think part of the frustration was that the task force had been in existence a long time and not much had been reported. However, the bill would have added some people who might have added to its effectiveness.
Cox said the Health Department had plenty of statistics on heath disparities, for instance, among Native Americans prone to diabetes, lung cancer and stroke.
"I hope the Health Department can move ahead on its own," said Cox, who was not at the disparities task force meeting.
The Health Department's disparities report concluded that people "living in poverty bear the greatest burden of health disparities, regardless of ethnic population group."
"Therefore, it is hard to visualize how health disparities can be diminished substantially until we solve the problem of the uninsured and the underinsured," it said.
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A bill requiring youngsters riding all terrain vehicles to wear helmets, another priority measure for the Health Department, also died for lack of a floor hearing in the House.
"It's just unfortunate," said Martha Collar of Safe Kids Oklahoma. "If it had failed on the House floor we would have felt that's just the way it is."
She decried such frivolous amendments as requiring ATV riders to wear armor.
"While they are making jokes, kids are dying," she said.
Sen. Bernest Cain, D-Oklahoma City, the bill's author, received a number of letters from doctors and nurses.
"ATV-related injuries are of great concern to family physicians, especially those in the rural areas of Oklahoma," said Dr. James L. Brand, president of the Oklahoma Academy of Family Physicians. 
He said 391 persons were hospitalized or died of traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries in Oklahoma from 1992-02, and 24 more died of such other injuries as a crushed chest.
"Forty-five percent of the persons who died were under 16 years of age," he said. "None of the persons who died were wearing a helmet."