Heath board discusses finding new sanitarian

The Hill County Health Board held its quarterly meeting Wednesday and discussed ongoing efforts to consolidate with the city and how to fill the long vacant county sanitarian position, along with a number of other issues.

Clay Vincent, who was the county’s sanitarian for many years, has been trying to retire for some time and is now covering only the essential duties of the positions as the county tries to find someone to fill the position, which they have had no luck doing so far.

Board Chair and Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said he wanted to discuss the matter of finding a new sanitarian, which is currently a part-time position, and asked whether they should make it a full-time one to try to attract someone, and how that would be paid.

Peterson said he’s been in discussions with the adjoining counties about possibly making a joint position to cover all of them, but there’s seemingly been little interest.

Berg and members of the board were universally in favor of making the position full time, but Berg said there is a more fundamental problem that’s keeping them from finding someone, pay.

She said offering the equivalent of $21 an hour for a position that requires a specific bachelor’s degree, along with numerous other requirements, one that frequently puts someone in the position of being in conflict with people in the community due to their duties as sanitarian, is not justifiable.

Across Montana, she said, such a position would pay between $28 and $45 an hour.

Berg said she wasn’t prepared to give a figure she thinks is justifiable, because the reality is that this observation, that a demanding job with high education requirements necessitates higher pay, applies to every single position in her department, and none of them are getting a justifiable wage.

She said she’s still putting together materials for a full conversation on this problem, but she thinks this issue really needs to be discussed.

No one going into public health does it to get rich, she said, but current pay is a huge problem.

Board Member Erica McKeon-Hanson echoed Berg’s sentiments, saying she also thinks a large discussion about pay is warranted.

Berg also said because of how the county’s pay structure worked they had an almost-decade-long employee of the department ready to go to take the sanitation position only to be told they would need to take a pay cut to do it, so money does matter.

“That was in the past, Kim,” Peterson said.

“I understand it was in the past, but we are still without a sanitarian,” Berg said.

After some discussion Peterson told her and others to focus on the sanitarian position.

Board members discussed the possibility of going to Montana State University-Northern’s biology program to try to work with them to find someone who might fill the position when they finished schooling.

Health Department Disease Intervention Specialist Brandi Williams said their biology department is very environmental health-focused, so it is a good pipeline to the position.

Berg said it’s certainly something they can do, but it’s not an immediate solution.

The board also discussed ongoing efforts to reorganize into a city-county health board, which they have been working on for some time.

Berg said she does have a work-in-progress draft of a document to create the board, one based off of another county that did the same, but there are still kinks to work out and they still need the input and guidance of Hill County Attorney Lacey Lincoln.

Board members discussed the potential makeup of the board, seeming to settle on the idea of having a seven-person board with one representative from the Hill County Commission and one from the Havre City Council, one from the k-12 school system, one from Northern, one licensed health care provider and or veterinarian, one person from the public health sector and one member-at-large from outside the city limits.

The board also discussed whether or not the board itself should have its own budget.

McKeon-Hanson said she thinks it probably should have a budget to pay for things like training for new members, which Peterson agreed was a good idea.

Berg said, historically, money for training board members has come out of the health department’s budget, but McKeon-Hanson said it doesn’t seem right that they should take money from the department when they could have their own budget.

Peterson said they would need to talk to Lincoln about all of this, and Berg said she would relay the document and the contents of the meeting to her.

Update on COVID testing, cases

The board also heard updates from the department on various activities including COVID-19 tracking and prevention.

Williams said cases are staying under 50 a week, usually hovering somewhere in the mid-30s, but the number is probably much higher than that because a lot of people who test positive don’t report it.

She said they’ve been sending surveys to people who report positive tests to gather data and track the spread of the disease, and while the reply rate is only about 50%, they are getting good demographic data.

Peterson asked if the response rate or the fact that not every positive case is being reported has any impact on the department’s funding.

Williams said it doesn’t, but they want to have the most accurate data possible, so they want to increase response and reporting rates.

Berg said they need more widespread testing if they want to improve these issues, but since free tests have more or less run out, most people would need to buy them from a pharmacy.

She said they need to have the most accurate read on the situation possible to make sure that another potential surge of COVID-19 doesn’t inundate the hospitals, which are already looking down the barrel of what is likely to be a really bad influenza season.

She said they have been doing flu shot clinics and offering COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters as usual.

The board also discussed a recent and significant increase in the amount of people utilizing WIC benefits and the fact that said benefits have recently increased.

Narcan training going well

Williams also talked about her education program on use of narcan, a drug used to reverse opioid overdoses, which she said is vital to the department’s efforts at harm reduction.

She said her classes have been teaching people how to administer narcan and she’s trained people from the Salvation Army, Chinook Emergency Services, drug treatment courts, and a lot of local teachers.

She said the classes have also been informing people about legal protections and liabilities involved with narcan and dispelling a number of harmful myths about drugs, like the idea that touching fentanyl can cause an overdose or kill someone, which Williams said is physiologically impossible.

She said the department can provide narcan for free and she doesn’t need any information from the people looking to get it.

Peterson said he’s glad to see this program so successful, adding that it saves lives.