Staffing, pandemic occupy county board of health

What to do with $181,000 in new funds coming to Wahkiakum County’s Department of Health and Human Services?

Department Director Judy Bright reported Tuesday that the funding is in the works in the state legislature. The funding, totalling $100 million, would come over a two-year period.

“There’s a $600 million gap in public health funding,” Bright said. “The $100 million is just a down payment.”

Bright said the money would fund two full-time equivalent positions (FTE’s). The funds can’t supplant existing county funding, although legislators understand county budget constraints and are debating how hard and fast to be.

Bright said she could use extra staff. The department has only a 0.8 FTE health nurse and herself, and she’s torn between different management responsibilities.

Commissioner George Trott urged caution in adding to staff.

“You really have to look at these things,” Trott said. “No matter what they say, there’s a cost to the county—for office space, vehicles, and so on.

“A minor cut in funding could yield a huge implosion. Planning the whole thing is something I want to look at.”

“I understand your concern,” Bright said.

In other board of health business, health officials around the world are continuing to monitor the potential of a pandemic of avian flu.

Consultant Sandi Benbrook Rieder said one of the strategies for dealing with an outbreak would be to have a trained group of volunteers who could help people maintain “social distance,” that is, they would assist people who were ill and needed to stay at home. Having infected people stay home instead of going to work or school would significantly slow the spread of the disease, she said.

Dr. Mimi Fields, county health officer, added that the public needs to receive messages about ways to control the spread of infection, ways such as cover a cough or staying home when ill.