Priorities

Our first stop

Apr 12 2009

With Congress on recess after the first 90 days, Senator Warner is back on the road, to give a report on his progress in Washington and to hear constituents' concerns about the state of our economy. 

Our first stop was to Norton Community Hospital in Wise County. 

The hospital received $95,000 for the Wanda Wampler's Women's Center from the Omnibus Appropriations Bill of 2009 that was approved by Congress in March.  The funds were used to upgrade the Norton hospital's services through the use of state-of-the-art digital mammography equipment. 

Digital mammography improves earlier diagnoses of breast cancer and allows for shorter exam times, faster results, and fewer call-backs for repeat exams.

After touring the Women's Center, Senator Warner sat down with doctors, administrators, and local elected officials to talk about health care reform and increasing access to wireless broadband.

Within the past month, Norton Community Hospital has connected via broadband with a sister facility over the state line in Tennessee. 

The Senator expressed an interest in working with hospital officials to make sure rural health care providers are not out of health IT initiatives coming out of Washington.