By John Estridge
Union County Health Department (UCHD) Board members and employees believe they should think long term when considering COVID-19.
Thus, the members and employees discussed the best way to spend a $100,000 Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) reimbursement plan, and a $228,000 CARES reimbursement plan to best benefit the community. This discussion took place at their quarterly meeting Thursday evening, August 20, at the UCHD.
Both grant-like plans will reimburse the county for any COVID-19-related expenditures. It was emphasized the programs are not grants but reimbursable funds, meaning the county spends money, turns in an invoice to ISDH, and then the state reimburses the county. County officials in both Franklin and Union counties have said these programs are the exceptions to the rule when dealing with state reimbursement. Instead, of being delayed by reams of red tape, the reimbursements are coming back to the counties in 10-14 days.
“I don’t think the COVID is going away for a long time,” county health coordinator Alvin Day said. “I don’t think testing is going away for a long while either. I don’t.”
Later in the meeting, UCHD Nurse Kim Klein echoed Day’s comments. When she was talking about positive test results occurring, she said she also did not think COVID was going away for some time. The testing grant is to continue through June 2021.
The health department received a skid of testing supplies from the ISDH earlier on Thursday. Day said the ISDH was going to send a three-month supply but found out county health departments cannot store that much product at one time so the state cut down the shipments to a one-month supply.
Currently, the UCHD is doing testing off another much smaller grant that is running out. With the new grant, Day said almost every county health department in the state will set up testing sites in the individual counties; thus, a large group of people will not descend on Union County when the new testing starts in the county.
However, when the new testing begins, and health department officials gave a ballpark date of sometime mid to late September, UCHD cannot turn anyone away. That means even out-of-state residents will be allowed to be tested.
Dr. Susan Bantz, a health board member, said UC may see an influx of people from the Oxford, Ohio, area as there are not any public testing, that she knows about, going on in that community.
Day and Bantz have been doing testing in UC for awhile. Earlier Thursday, Bantz, Day and others went to Brownsville to do testing in that community. They took one of the mobile trailers with them to help facilitate the testing. Day said the mobile trailers are very heavy, about 9,000 pounds.
To get the trailer to Brownsville and earlier to College Corner, they had to get others with large pickups to haul the trailer. Thursday, county highway superintendent Jeff Bowers hauled the trailer with his three-quarter-ton diesel pickup. According to Day, Bowers said he definitely knew he was hauling something.
Currently, the UCHD has a smaller pickup. Day asked Bowers if the small pickup could haul the trailer. Bowers told him it could, but the pickup would not last long.
Thus, the department is going to purchase a large-enough pickup out of the reimbursable money to haul the trailers.
Also, Bantz said Klein cannot do the testing and do all of the other duties that come with being the county nurse, including immunizations. Therefore, the UCHD board members unanimously voted to hire two part-time people to handle the testing. Not only does UCHD do the testing, but the department also does the contact tracing. Many other counties in the area rely on ISDH for that service.
At an earlier Union County College Corner Joint School District Board of Trustees meeting, a school board member — whose husband tested positive — said the state contact tracing people did not contact her family about tracing information until 16 days after the positive test. That was too late for any people who may have been exposed prior to his knowing he was positive.
UCDH members said the new employees will make $15 to $17 per hour. They should be CPR trained. Bantz suggested a medical assistant or a licensed practical nurse. Also, they will be paid out of the reimbursable fund.
ISDH employees are coming to UCDH next week to train personnel on the new testing equipment, Day said.
Local officials will have to decide how to get the results from the tests. Currently, the UCHD utilizes Reid Health’s lab. Klein and others are very happy concerning the turnaround time on tests sent to Reid and also on its reliability in giving out accurate test results.
The ISDH is offering a free testing service, but it could be up to 72 hours for the tests to even be picked up by the state’s courier service. And then, there will be an unknown time in the lab before the results are released. Also, officials do not know what the reliability is with that lab.
Currently, Day is the courier service for the UCHD.
Union County Emergency Management Agency Director Jim Franklin wants to replace two aged, small storage sheds on the UCHD property and buy a larger storage shed. However, board members and UCHD staff suggested getting something a little larger, which includes an awning, so curbside testing and curbside immunizations can be done under the awning and have drive-through service in rain or dry weather.
Klein wants to purchase masks and give them away to people in the community. She also wants to look into the Nixle program, which is a group message system where it can reach anyone in the county signed up for the service. And the service is free to the residents in the county. Franklin County uses it now to disseminate information such as road closures, bad weather alerts and other emergency-related messages the public needs to know. It also relates items such as school closures in inclement weather and what level the county is under during winter weather.
Also, she said sanitizing units would be good to purchase so government buildings can be easily and quickly sanitized during the pandemic.
Bantz said many people in the county have worked together to make the COVID-19 testing successful in Union County. She said Danka Klein, executive director of the Union County Foundation, and Melissa Browning, the Union County Development Corporation director, have been instrumental in the county receiving COVID-19-related grants.
She said it is another excellent example of people in a small community working together for the common good.