Health Department Will Remain Unsplit for Now

By Alison Shackelford Hewitt COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

Nearly a year after Supervisor Don Knabe suggested that the county consider splitting its health department in two, the board of supervisors decided Tuesday not to divide the department — yet.

The supervisors voted to take up the issue again in May, when they expect to hear a report giving them alternatives. In addition to considering turning the Department of Health Services’ public health division into a separate department, the board will look at giving the division more autonomy instead.

“Public health functions must be stronger and more efficient than they are now,” Knabe said. “But we don’t have to create two independent bureaucracies to reach that goal.”

The public health division runs clinics tailored for specific health threats such as tuberculosis and AIDS, and oversees countywide health issues such as obesity, sexually transmitted diseases, bird flu and bioterrorism preparedness. The other half of DHS, the personal health division, runs the county hospitals — including County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center near Torrance — as well as health centers and other services that focus on ensuring low- income patients have access to medical care.

Supervisor Gloria Molina opposed the idea of a split, saying the proposal could hurt patient care by making the department even more fragmented and potentially forcing patients to go to separate facilities instead of getting one-stop service.

“There is no benefit whatsoever to the patients,” she argued.

Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said she believes splitting the DHS could work eventually, but that she still has too many concerns to support it now. Although the public health division was once a separate department, public health concerns are more intermingled with treatment than they used to be, she said.

“The only way I’ll agree to separation is if some of those basic concerns are ironed out in terms of who does what,” Burke said.

Public Health Director Jonathan Fielding contended that if the department split, “there would be no change in any programs.

“Patients would not notice any difference because nothing’s moving around. This is an administrative change, not a program change.”

Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Mike Antonovich joined Fielding in supporting a split, in part because it would enable the public- health division to better focus on its core mission, retain more grant money and hire needed personnel more quickly.

But Bruce Chernof, director of DHS, said that while he could “see the pluses,” he opposes separating the two divisions because it would likely result in poorer communication between them.