ROBERT PIERCE

   • Leader & Times

With many residents in Seward County not having health insurance, affordable health care is a must for many locals, and Oct. 3, Southwest Medical Center is giving everyone a chance to get testing and screening for a low cost, with some of this being free.

For the 17th year, the hospital is hosting its annual Community Health Fair, and SWMC Marketing and Development Director Janeth Vazquez said hospital officials are super excited to be able to provide preventative screenings to the community.

As always, the health fair takes place the first Saturday in October at the Seward County Activity Center, and Vazquez said as the event continues, what takes place for five hours that Saturday morning never ceases to surprise her.

“I’m just amazed this event has managed to continue being in place for the last 16 years now, going on the 17th,” she said.

In 2024, the Community Health Fair hosted its landmark 15th edition, and the second 15 years officially kicked off in 2025. Vazquez said both of those years went quite well.

“I feel the numbers continue to grow significantly from when I first started planning the health fair,” she said. “Two years ago, we were able to offer free screenings, which I said was going to be a one-time thing, but I always made it my mission to continue to be able to offer more screenings at a reduced cost.”

The good news for this year’s health fair, Vazquez said, is testing costs have been cut nearly in half to extend care.

“The price went down a little bit on the additional screenings, but I was able to move some of the other screenings we used to charge for into the general testing kit,” she said. “You’re technically getting free tests as part of the general lab package now. We moved the vitamin panel – Vitamin D and B12 – last year into it, and this year, we’re moving the A1C and magnesium into it as well. You’re getting all the screenings that are part of the general lab testing for $35, and we’ve even lowered the cost of the cancer screenings to $5.”

Free health screenings include:

• Blood pressure checks

• Clinical breast exams

• Spirometry Testing

• Pulse oximetry testing – measures oxygen concentration in the blood.

The $35 general lab test kit includes:

• Comprehensive metabolic profile

• Lipid profile – assesses risk of developing a cardiovascular disease.

• Thyroid screen – diagnoses thyroid irregularities.

• Complete blood count – detects conditions such as anemia, infection and blood disorders.

• Vitamin panel (Vitamin D and Vitamin B12)

• HGB A1C (Glycated Hemoglobin) – monitors long-term glucose control (three-month average).

• Magnesium

Optional testing, which is general testing, plus an additional $5 each includes:

• PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) – screens for possible prostate cancer.

• CEA (Carcinoembryogenic Antigen) – screens for possible cancers in women.

Results will be sent by mail within three to five weeks.

“We do not provide health information directly to providers,” Vazquez said.

Vazquez said her latest numbers indicate Seward County has the fourth highest rate of uninsured people in the state.

“I couldn’t tell you statistically what the percentage is, but what I can tell you is we’re always two to three times higher than the national and state average,” she said. “The national and state average is at 8 percent, and we’ve always been around 23, 24. Out of every four people, one person is uninsured.”

This, Vazquez said, makes the goal of the Community Health Fair a simple one.

“It’s to make quality preventative health care affordable for everyone in Southwest Kansas, especially in a community where residents face many challenges to having access to health care due to lack of insurance,” she said. “Now, they can get basically all the screenings. We used to have the elective ones. Now, they can get everything for $40.”

The Activity Center is a relatively large building, but Vazquez said space for the health fair is at a premium.

“In reality, I don’t have any space,” she said. “If anything, I would have more services and more vendors, but we’re always out of space. We try to get creative and try to maximize our space and offer many screenings.”

Vazquez said the health fair is currently at a point where it has outgrown the Activity Center, and she will likely be looking for a new home for the event in the future.

Vazquez said putting on the Community Health Fair takes many things, including planning, budgeting, patience and the will to continue growing in population and services, as well as the support of the community.,

“It’s a big collaboration of a lot of organizations, businesses and the hospital and all of the volunteers who donate their time to make this possible,” she said.

The health fair will run from 7 to noon, and for Vazquez, these hours go by fast.

“They go by so fast I look back, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know what I just did in the last five hours,’” she said. “From Friday evening until Saturday evening, I am on the go non-stop with a lot of different random tasks. It’s extremely busy. I feel after the health fair when I sit down and process everything, it’s very rewarding, but in that moment, I’m in go mode trying to get everything done.”

For Vazquez and everyone else helping with the event, the health fair does not stop at noon.

“We’ve still got a lot of work,” she said. “We’ve got to tear it all down, pack everything up and bring it back to the hospital. In reality, what we’re doing is packing our hospital and moving it to the Activity Center. We’re creating a mobile hospital at the Activity Center.”

As the Community Health Fair continues into its second 15 years, Vazquez said she hopes to be able to offer many more free health screenings and services, and she as well hopes to have more funding to provide those.

“If I have more funding, I can lower tests or offer them at a discounted rate, but I would also ideally like to see a bigger Event Center so we could do more with more space,” she said.

Vazquez said it is critically important for everyone to take advantage of the health fair.

“It could save your life,” she said. “Seward County continues to have one of the highest uninsured rates in Kansas, so making affordable screenings and early detection opportunities are especially important for local families.”

There is no pre-registration required to attend the health fair, and the event is open to all visitors.

“Many businesses and organizations focused on health and wellness will be available to provide information about their products or services,” Vazquez said. “Concessions will be available at the Activity Center.”

The health fair will take place from 7 a.m. to noon Saturday, Oct. 3, at the Seward County Activity Center. For more information, call Vazquez at 620-629-6335 or Rachel Downing at 620-629-6424, or visit Southwest Medical Center on Facebook or other social media platforms.

Vazquez said with a little more than a month until the Community Health Fair, she is quite excited for the event,

“Right now, I’m working extremely hard to cross off all the checkmarks, all the logistics and items we have to take care before the health fair,” she said. “I’m in go mode right now trying to advance as much as I can. The health fair does truly take a lot of preparation.”

For Vazquez, planning for the health fair is seemingly a year-round process.

“I already start planning for the next year, but a lot of the first few months goes into grant writing,” she said. “After that’s over, I move on to logistics. All the supplies I need, the giveaways, the volunteers, anything you see out there, we probably wrote it or edited it – all of the marketing, the promotion that goes into the health fair, all of the community presentations.”

Vazquez said thousands of hours of preparation are put into the health fair because hospital officials want to make it the best experience for the community.

“We time everything from the moment somebody walks in through those doors until they leave,” she said. “We already have role played to have an idea of how it’s going to go, and we always try to implement new strategies and initiatives to make it better. For example, the line of patients, we’ve modified a few times – the registration area, the packets. We always look for ways to improve the health fair.”