Madison Schaeffer described it as her favorite call.

As an epidemiologist and director of the New Mexico Department of Health's NMHealth Helpline, Schaeffer and her staff had fielded their fair share of health care-related questions. They have helped New Mexicans find primary care doctors and specialists, scheduled vaccines for children and adults, responded to concerns about bites from various real and mythical creatures — monkeys and javelinas, chupacabras and Bigfoot.

But until her favorite call came in, Schaeffer had never heard of a lemur in a rural New Mexico town, taking up residence behind the bar of a chain restaurant and snacking on mozzarella sticks.

The caller asked whether rabies can be transmitted by being in the same room as a lemur. Schaeffer and her team contacted the requisite animal control officials — who determined the "lemur" was in fact a cat with a striped tail.

The call demonstrates the 5-year-old helpline's central credo: No question is too outlandish for the helpline staff to handle, Schaeffer said. Particularly as New Mexicans worry about a variety of unusual maladies — measles, hantavirus, plague — the state Department of Health's on-call nurses are available seven days a week to answer calls and pressing questions. In total, Schaeffer said, her staff fields and places about 10,000 calls per month.

"We can help with pretty much anything," she said. "If people need help, they should call us. It's what we're here for."

The helpline got its start as the state's COVID-19 hotline, with Department of Health nursing staff answering questions related to the illness, conveying positive test results and, as time went on, scheduling vaccinations.

As pandemic-related worries waned, however, the hotline maintained its services — and expanded to offer more and more health resources.

"We built this infrastructure, and it seems like it would be a waste to just let it go away, so we gradually started adding more things," Schaeffer said.

Now, she added, "Our primary goal is to help members of the public with literally anything health-related."

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Nurse practitioner Brieann Peralta calls a pharmacy April 28 from an examination room at the Albuquerque Northeast Heights Health Office. "The telehealth program is really great because it has the potential to reach those who are most vulnerable, with little to no access to care otherwise," she said.

The NMHealth Helpline helps fills a gap left in 2016 when the more than 10-year-old nonprofit NurseAdvice New Mexico hung up its phones. The longtime service, operated through a public-private partnership, provided residents across the state with free, 24-hour phone access to state-based nurses to help ease the strain on rural health clinics and hospitals. It had been hailed as a national model.

But as managed care companies that had long supported the program began switching to out-of-state phone services, the nonprofit's revenues began to decline, and last-minute efforts to shore up its budget fell short.

* Helping callers find primary care doctors, mental health care providers, specialists and addiction treatment.

* Offering advice about diseases and infections, including food poisoning, COVID-19, winter viruses and animal bites.

* Testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.

* Scheduling vaccines for kids and adults.

* Connecting callers with reproductive health services, like finding birth control, abortion providers, pregnancy resources and prenatal care.

The helpline's services are available 13 hours a day on weekdays and six hours a day on weekends in English and Spanish, with after-hours support for clinicians.

Who's on the other end of the phone?

The helpline is staffed by a team of about 20 registered nurses, Schaeffer said, plus a few nonclinical vital records workers to handle questions about birth and death certificates.

A handful of other providers offer telehealth services through the helpline, too, even prescribing medications.

Nurse practitioner Brieann Peralta is one such provider. Though she originally joined the helpline team to prescribe antiviral medication during the pandemic, the scope of her work has since expanded to include some telehealth visits. She can coordinate free mail-order tests for routine screenings for sexually transmitted infections or help schedule testing at a local laboratory or public health office.

Helpline workers can also call in prescription treatments for certain STIs to a local pharmacy or help coordinate treatment at a public health office.

Another provider can consult with patients and prescribe medication for opioid abuse.

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Nurse practitioner Brieann Peralta in an examination room April 28 at the Albuquerque Northeast Heights Health Office. "The telehealth program is really great because it has the potential to reach those who are most vulnerable, with little to no access to care otherwise," she said.

It's particularly helpful in New Mexico, where providers are often scarce and far away from rural communities, Peralta said.

"The telehealth program is really great because it has the potential to reach those who are most vulnerable, with little to no access to care otherwise," she said.

Peralta added, "We know that the world of health care is changing, and we have to meet people where they are, especially in public health."

As other agencies and organizations scramble to find funding amid massive federal cuts to public health programs — particularly those with lingering connections to the pandemic — the NMHealth Helpline is safe, Schaeffer said. Starting with the new fiscal year July 1, the helpline's roughly $3 million annual budget will be covered with state funds.

After the helpline's five years in existence, Schaeffer said she's interested in the possibility of expanding its telehealth offerings.

"[We're] looking at what opportunities there are in order to help New Mexicans continue with their access to services, make sure they're getting what they need," she said.