People all over New Hampshire care deeply about who they elect to represent them, whether it’s on their select board, in Concord or the halls of Congress.
Joanne M. Conroy, MDAs part of the We Care We Vote initiative, Dartmouth Health hosted a Rural Health Equity Forum at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) on Wednesday, September 4. Co-hosted by Dartmouth Health’s Office of Government Relations and Center for Advancing Rural Health Equity, all candidates running for New Hampshire’s second Congressional District, where DHMC is located, were invited to learn about rural challenges and share their political strategies to tackle health disparities. In attendance were Democrats Maggie Goodlander and Colin Van Ostern, who are both seeking for the seat soon to be vacated by Rep. Ann McLane Kuster (D-NH).
At the forum, community members—including clinicians, researchers, students, nonprofit leaders, journalists and more—were invited to ask health equity-centered questions of the candidates with context and background information. Moderated by Dartmouth Health CEO and president Joanne M. Conroy, MD, Van Ostern and Goodlander gave their pitch on a wide array of topics related to rural health, including challenges facing older adults, improving outcomes for children, Medicaid expansion, and how each candidate would address these issues and more in Washington.
“Granite Staters have long played an outsized role relative to our state’s small size on the political stage, but that’s not limited to the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. People all over New Hampshire care deeply about who they elect to represent them, whether it’s on their select board, in Concord or the halls of Congress,” Conroy said. “Dartmouth Health takes its role as a public health authority in this state seriously, especially as the most rural academic medical system in the nation. I thank Ms. Goodlander and Mr. Van Ostern for sharing their visions for improving health equity for everyone in the District, regardless of their zip code.”
A video of the forum is available upon request. To learn more about We Care We Vote, visit bit.ly/4eb25CS.
About Dartmouth Health
Dartmouth Health, New Hampshire’s only academic health system and the state’s largest private employer, serves patients across northern New England. Dartmouth Health provides access to more than 2,000 providers in almost every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH, as well as across its wide network of hospitals, clinics and care facilities. DHMC is consistently named the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by U.S. News & World Report, and is recognized for high performance in numerous clinical specialties and procedures. Dartmouth Health includes Dartmouth Cancer Center, one of only 57 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the nation, and the only such center in northern New England; Dartmouth Health Children’s, which includes the state’s only children’s hospital and multiple locations around the region; member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, Claremont and New London, NH, and Windsor and Bennington, VT; Visiting Nurse and Hospice for Vermont and New Hampshire; and more than 24 clinics that provide ambulatory and specialty services across New Hampshire and Vermont. Through its historical partnership with Dartmouth and the Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth Health trains nearly 400 medical residents and fellows annually, and performs cutting-edge research and clinical trials recognized across the globe with Geisel and the White River Junction VA Medical Center in White River Junction, VT. Dartmouth Health and its more than 13,000 employees are deeply committed to serving the healthcare needs of everyone in our communities, and to providing each of our patients with exceptional, personal care.