The Rio Blanco County Board of Health — the three commissioners, the public health director and the public health nurse — convened Tuesday in Rangely.
Public Health Director Makayla Sheridan said the department is ready to submit its Community Health Assessment and Public Health Improvement Plan to the state. The board moved and approved submission of both plans as discussed at the previous Board of Health meeting.
Sheridan also said the state is trying to take away funding from several state grants. “I’m kind of at a standstill here,” she said.
The grants named were awarded by the state to provide Covid-related administration, supplies and promotion of the covid vaccine — not the actual vaccine. Also at risk are core immunization funds for all immunizations, about $20K every year.
County Attorney Don Steerman said the state has tied that grant to required basic vaccines for children and uninsured or underinsured adults as part of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommendations. According to the CDC’s website, as of Sept. 12, 2023, the CDC Director officially recommends Covid-19 vaccines for all persons six months of age and older. (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/recommendations.html)
“They’re going to take away all of the vaccines for our community because of one vaccine we don’t want to carry,” Sheridan said.
“I think they’re planning on making an example of us if we decide we don’t want to do something with the Covid,” Steerman said.
The grants that could be removed from the county include some that are specific to Covid ($73K total), a shared grant with Mesa County for epidemiological and emergency response that is “difficult to administrate” because of complicated requirements and scope of work ($17K to RBC). Two of the other grants are not connected directly to Covid, including a workforce grant specifically for supporting the public health workforce of which $74K remains to be spent out of $141K originally received, and an infrastructure grant of $242K to support the workforce in public health that hasn’t been spent.
County Attorney Don Steerman suggested the possibility of contracting with the county’s hospitals and clinics to provide some of the services, thereby keeping the grant funding in the county. Other counties in the state have been approved for similar plans. Commissioner Ty Gates said that could be one way to reduce the excess expense of wasted vaccines. Vials contain 10 doses, and must be used within 12 hours before being discarded. If only one person comes in to get a vaccine, the rest of the vial has to be thrown away, at significant cost to the provider.
If the hospitals don’t want to contract with public health, another option to continue providing other recommended vaccinations would be to purchase privately funded vaccines. Public Health Nurse Karen Dinwiddie said only a few uninsured and underinsured people access public health for vaccinations and the county could “eat the cost” of providing those for free.
In addition, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is planning to have a mobile public health option to travel around the state to provide public health services some counties are unable or unwilling to offer. Sheridan said she has started the process of scheduling that mobile clinic to visit RBC.
The Board agreed to check with the hospitals and see if they are willing to contract with public health for vaccinations and plan to revisit the discussion on Nov. 14.
BY NIKI TURNER
