THREE ANGLES ON HEALTH CARE

    The Marshfield Clinic had a video conferencing setup. There were cancer support groups in small towns around the area, and they used their facilities to listen to lectures arranged by Halfen and then were able to ask questions. After the video segment, the groups would meet locally for a regular face-to-face discussion. Betty Schaefer in Birchwood enlisted retired nurses for the parish nursing program that enabled people to have medical care without visiting the local clinic. Nancy's project was an asset map of alternative and complementary medical assistance. While some see alternative medicine as a replacement for mainstream practices, she sees it as an addition to existing practices. By May 2001 she has more than twenty-six pages of resources for the rural part Wisconsin near Ladysmith. Many of these practitioners are not wealthy, and they cannot publicize their skills, so the guide will be a great benefit to this part of the medical economy.

Nancy thought the strong points of the project were the ways that communities were strengthened through diverse partnerships. As her use of email increased, she saw the value in way the technology helped her stay closer to colleagues. The Servite Center had a dialup connection to the mail server at the college, and unlike many local phone systems, her center had to pay six cents for each local call. One weekend the dialling device malfunctioned and made 4635 calls with just a minute or so between each one, resulting in a bill of more than $250! Not all the projects were high tech. Another team was making mini-grants of less than $1000 for outdoor education, and the Servite Center constructed an herb garden where visitors could see labelled plants and identify them in a well-maintained setting.