By Mari Radtke
Last week we published the spending by O’Brien County Supervisors from the American Rescue Funds (ARPA) broken down by department. We found an error and are providing O’Brien County citizens with a corrected accounting. We apologize for the error.
We also spent a great deal of time outlining the recent requests from the Public Health Department. The story does not do justice to the injustice of the lack of sufficient funding by the O’Brien County Supervisors to this department. Repeated requests have been made for a variety of ways the working conditions for the Public Health staff could be made a little more attractive. The wages for a public health nurse compared to a nurse for a provider network or hospital. The county’s benefits do make up for some of that. The nurses spend many hours on the road, traveling through the county to reach their clients, school, or other worksite in their personal vehicles. The mileage compensation awarded is much lower than the requested federal reimbursement rate. If there is an accident, the deductible and other out of pocket costs are on them. The office in the courthouse is used for (currently) 2 fulltime and 2 part time nurses and 1 office manager to maintain patient records and other tasks. This same staff often gets chastised when all are called out of the office to get to patients when necessary – for scheduled clinics and emergencies. Insufficient staffing is causing the department to not always meet the public’s needs. The supervisors have again turned down the request for an additional nurse while chastising them when the office is closed during business hours. The worst part – they are losing their office manager.
The tiny office space is also expected to double as an examination room. A folding curtain is supposed to provide the privacy, not to mention dignity, to patients coming in for whatever the health need might be. A private conversation or questions are not an option in that space.
Yes, the supervisors just awarded Public Health $50,000 to remodel that space to provide room for the existing and insufficient staff. The HIPPA compliance issue has not been specifically addressed by the supervisors. But they seem to think throwing the token money at the department instead of facing the problem and working to solve it will work. It won’t.
Emergency Management Director Jared Johnson stated earlier this year in a public meeting that Conservation had experienced turnover in the Naturalist position, insinuating the (Conservation) board’s fault. The same can be said of Public Health. There have been 4 directors of O’Brien County Public Health in 5 years. There are a lot of reasons to believe that is due to the impossible working conditions imposed upon the department.
O’Brien County Public Health needs proper space, proper staffing and appropriate funding. Regionalization of Public Health by the State is currently a fairy tale. Not approving an additional nurse because another department couldn’t have an additional employee if they ask is not a valid position. Public Health needs a nurse – at minimum – now!