• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Merge Health Departments

Posted on: Monday, 25 October 2004, 11:00 CDT

THE STATE'S 95 local public health departments are being urged by Gov. Rod Blagojevich to follow the lead of local fire departments and create a mutual aid system to deal with cases that might overwhelm a single department.

The concept is a good one. However, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, let us state that there should be no need for a mutual aid agreement between the Springfield Public Health Department and the Sangamon County Public Health Department because they should be a single department.

YOU'LL NOTICE that the state has only 95 local health departments. That is because the vast majority of counties have the sense to have a countywide health department. Unfortunately, in Sangamon County, the city of Springfield has fought the idea of having a joint department.

The fight has gotten so ridiculous recently, that the city was going to force the county health department to request special permits to operate clinics within the city limits. The measure was billed as an attempt to minimize duplication of services; in reality, it was simply harassment and petty politics over turf protection.

Now the governor is urging local health departments to join in agreements that would spell out the details and legalities of helping each other in the case of an overwhelming emergency such as a large-scale salmonella outbreak or possibly the need for a massive immunization program in a portion of the state.

OBVIOUSLY, the concept makes sense. We know such a model of interagency cooperation works because fire departments across the state have been using it for more than three decades.

But the key concept here is that public health emergencies don't always follow nicely drawn municipal or county lines. A flu bug doesn't know where Springfield ends and Jerome begins, and that mosquito that hatched in Chatham might carry its West Nile virus all the way to the city boundaries.

As much sense as mutual aid agreements between public health departments makes, the merging of the Springfield and Sangamon County health departments makes even more. The city, intent on keeping its own separate health department, is also battling the county for $600,00 of the annual take of the county's public health tax. A merger could make the argument over who gets the revenue inconsequential.

It is clear that as long as there are two public health departments locally, competition, not cooperation, will rule. The area medical community has long and strongly supported a merger; a blue-ribbon study group in 1995 headed by the former director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, John Lumpkin, advocated a single local health department; and nearly every other county in the state follows the countywide health department organization.

WARD 3 ALD. Frank Kunz spoke the truth recently when he said:

"I think most of us know a lot of this merger stuff is just everybody positioning themselves. I think it's time, if we're going to do stuff right in the city and the county, that somebody sits down and honestly tries to merge this stuff the right way," Kunz said.

We agree it needs to be done the right way. But more importantly, it needs to be done. The Sangamon County Medical Society has pledged not to back off this issue. Neither will we. Let the state's local public health departments cooperate, and let the two local departments become one.

Source: State Journal Register

More News in this Category