Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center holds Health Care and Wellness Event

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KBSI) – The Cape County Public Health Care and Wellness Event was held at the Cape Girardeau Public Health Department on Friday, July 12.

The event was the first of its kind and ran from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

Autumn Grim is the Health Center Director and she says the event was held to connect Cape County residents to health and resources.

“Lots of people came out today to help us with this adventure!” 

Gibson Recovery Center Behavior Health gave suicide prevention information and free Narcan and Saint Francis Medical Center provided free mammograms and lunch.

There was a food pantry and Southside Farms was giving out free fresh produce. A blood drive with the American Red Cross and so much more.

Jessica Mathenia with Gibson Recovery Behavior Health shares what they did.

 “We are giving out Narcan,” said Mathenia. “We have Narcan training to train those who may not know what Narcan is or how it works. Lots of pamphlets, lots of information about medical assisted treatment.”

Mathenia shares the importance of having Narcan and knowing how to use it. 

“It’s very easy to use, its important because you never know if you are going to stumble across someone who is overdosing. Good thing about Narcan is if it’s not an overdose no harm done. If it is, then you just saved their life.” 

Grim says this event was much bigger than they had planned, and hundreds of people came out and got connected with wonderful local resources.  

“This is the first time we’ve done anything this big. We’ve had some events here before, but this was the first opportunity to get all those community partners to get together so go big or go home and that’s what we did today.” 

They plan to make this an annual event.