San Joaquin County public health officer Dr. Maggie Park speaks at a news conference at the Stribley Community Center in Stockton to give an update on the COVID-19 pandemic on Sept. 2, 2021.
San Joaquin County has
rejected a grand jury's conclusion that the structuring of the county's health
services department hindered the public health officer's ability to respond
effectively to the COVID-19 pandemic.
County departments did not
effectively work together or share information in responding to the pandemic, a
grand jury found in July. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors approved the
county's official response to the grand jury in a 5-0 consent vote.
Grand jury: Health department structure hindered COVID-19
information sharing
One issue the grand jury
report highlighted was that San Joaquin County's public health officer was
prevented from disseminating information to the public and to county
departments.
That's because the public
health director, to whom the public health officer reports, "was hesitant
to share pertinent information," the grand jury report said.
The public health officer
should not report to the public health director to begin with, the report said.
In most counties in
California, the public health officer and the public health director both
report to the head of the health department, the report said. Sometimes, the
director of public health is subordinate to the public health officer, it said.
What's more, the public
health officer is usually the ultimate authority in a public health emergency.
"Requiring the Public
Health Officer to report directly to the Director of Public Health Services
impeded the Public Health Officer’s ability to fulfill the statutory
requirements of responding to the Public Health Emergency," the grand jury
report said.
Grand jury:County’s COVID-19 response was not effective, delayed ability
to reduce spread
The public health
director's hesitance to share information meant that the public health officer
was hindered in communicating with the public, despite being the face of the
pandemic response, the report said.
San Joaquin County's
public health officer is Dr. Maggie Park. Its public health director is Zienna
Blackwell-Rodriquez.
Park could not be
immediately reached for comment.
County says health officer has received full support of
directors
In an official response to
the grand jury, the county disagreed with the conclusion that the structuring
of the Public Health Services department hindered the public health officer's
communication about the pandemic.
"The county believes
the health officer has received the full support of both the Health Care Services
Director and the Director of Public Health," the response said.
“I think the grand jury
report kind of (suggested) that because Dr. Park didn’t report to me, she
didn’t have access to myself or the resources, and that’s not true,” Greg
Diederich, the director of health care services, said.
"Dr. Park reporting
through Zienna I don’t think was an inhibitor at all as far as resources or
access. I literally talk to Dr. Park several times a day,” he said. If anything
got in the way of the department's work, it was the need to social distance and
work from home, Diederich said.
The county declined to
implement the grand jury's recommendation that it place Park's role directly
under Diederich instead of reporting to Blackwell-Rodriquez. In that scenario,
both Park and Blackwell-Rodriquez would report to Diederich.
“I have 25% vacancy in
public health. Do you want me to stop what we’re doing to ameliorate the spread
of COVID, to address a response plan?" Diederich said.
Obviously once the
emergency’s over, we need to do a hotwash on the part of the county. There are
lessons learned, there are opportunities for improvement,” he said.
In its response, the
county also agreed with several of the grand jury's findings.
One conclusion it agreed
with is that there is no clear policy for how disaster service workers are
deployed to emergency departments. The county said it would write a new policy.
The county will also train
medical, public health, and emergency services staff on the application of its
emergency operations plan and test the plan's effectiveness regularly, the
response said.
Record.net
Aaron Leathley
September 15, 2021
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