The program objectives of the community-based comprehensive perinatal health care system shall be the following:

(a)  To ensure continuing availability and accessibility to early prenatal care within the areas presently served and to develop a community-based comprehensive perinatal system in other areas of the state that are medically underserved or have demonstrated need.

(b)  To assure the appropriate level of maternal, newborn and pediatric care services necessary to provide the healthiest outcome for mother and infant.

(c)  To ensure postpartum, family planning, and followup care through the first year of life, and referral to an ongoing primary health care provider.

(d)  To include support and ancillary services such as nutrition, health education, public health nursing, and social work that have been demonstrated to decrease maternal, perinatal, and infant mortality and morbidity, as components of comprehensive perinatal care.

(e)  To ensure that care shall be available regardless of the patient’s financial situation.

(f)  To ensure, to the extent possible, that the same quality of care shall be available to all pregnant women.

(g)  To promote program flexibility by recognizing the needs within an area and providing for unique programs to meet those needs.

(h)  To emphasize preventive health care as a major component of any perinatal program, and to support outreach programs directed at low-income pregnant women that will encourage early entry into, and appropriate utilization of, the perinatal health care system.

(Added by Stats. 1995, Ch. 415, Sec. 8. Effective January 1, 1996.)