By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Unbiased Information
Wooden County Well being Division is placing extra concentrate on behavioral well being – together with for its nursing employees whose lives had been turned the other way up by COVID.
At its month-to-month assembly on Thursday, the Board of Well being voted to contract for a grief help program with Putnam County Well being Division. Whereas everybody was touched by COVID, public well being nursing staffs had been hit laborious.
They went from working a typical five-day work week to seven days per week for 2 years, stated Amy Jones, director of nursing at Wooden County Well being Division.
“There was a lack of normalcy of what you thought your job was,” Jones stated.
The grief program is designed to assist public well being nurses get well from COVID and develop coping methods.
“That is one thing they actually would really like,” Jones stated of her employees. “This might assist them shifting ahead.”
Additionally at Thursday’s assembly, the well being board voted to create new positions inside the division, together with a full-time behavioral well being supervisor and a full-time behavioral well being specialist.
Final summer season, board members agreed that the addition of rooms devoted to psychological well being are significantly wanted proper now. Well being Commissioner Ben Robison stated psychological well being providers have been recognized as an pressing want within the county by HRSA.
“If a pediatric affected person is recognized for needing psychological well being help, it’s a six-week wait simply to get the evaluation in an effort to be recognized for providers,” Robison stated final summer season.
Diana Krill, CEO of the group well being heart, stated the renovation will add two rooms devoted to behavioral well being. A 3rd room, deliberate for optometry providers, is also used as one other house for psychological well being providers, she stated.
Presently, psychological well being is “built-in” with different providers on the well being heart, Krill stated. The extra rooms will enable for particular person counseling periods.
Plans are to deliver on extra behavioral employees, Robison stated.
“They are going to be used,” he stated of the rooms devoted to psychological well being wants.
Board of Well being member Richard Strow stated he had seen that the variety of substance abuse deaths within the county has dropped considerably, however the variety of suicides had gone up prior to now 12 months.
Jones stated the brand new behavioral well being positions, plus the well being division’s epidemiologists will work to trace substance abuse and suicides.
In different enterprise, the board of well being:
- Licensed shifting forward with a water air pollution management mortgage fund for substitute of failed residence sewage septic methods. A portion of those funds can be utilized for linking houses with failed methods into obtainable sanitary sewer traces. Robison credited Lana Glore and Kelly Bechstein, of the environmental division, for working laborious to get the funds annually.
- Heard from Jones that the speed of influenza circumstances on this space has began to return down a bit.
- Inquired in regards to the outbreak of measles in Ohio. Jones stated the outbreak was solely within the Columbus area. “We now have been lucky that we’ve not had any right here in Wooden County,” she stated.
- Discovered from Robison {that a} detailed funds will come earlier than the board in March.
- After an govt session, authorized 4% throughout the board pay will increase for well being division workers – mirroring the will increase set by the Wooden County Commissioners for 2023.