Board of Health

City of Nashua Division of Public Health & Community Services 18 Mulberry Street, Nashua, NH 03060 BOARD OF HEALTH MEETING MINUTES April 14th, 2010 12:30 PM Meeting called to order at 12:30 p.m. by Dr. Anthony Storace - Quorum was met (Formal Meeting) BOH Members Present: Dr. Anthony Storace, Chair Dr. Ajay Sharma Dr. Peter Klementowicz Aldermen Present: Lori Wilshire Staff Present: Kerran Vigroux, Janet Graziano, Bobbie Bagley, Bob Mack, Heidi Peek, Patty Crooker, Ashley Conley Staff Absent: Chris Lister, Sandy Mulcahy Department Reports: A. Community Health B. Community Services a. Child Care/Grants b. Emergency Preparedness C. Environmental Health D. Welfare a. Mediation The Board was given the meeting Agenda, monthly departmental reports, current Board of Health budget, February BOH Meeting Minutes and list of BOH members, as well as senior staff contact information. 1 Welfare - Bob Mack presented: Welfare continues to see a slight decline in the monthly expenses and the number of clients is consistent, but going down a little bit. What we are spending to assist those folks is going down fairly significantly. The economy is turning around a little and we will keep looking at this. We are watching the State Budget situation to see if there are significant cuts in DHHS; otherwise, they could trickle down to us. Dr. Storace asked if Bob was comfortable with his budget this fiscal year. Bob stated that he had concerns at the beginning of the fiscal year, but it looks now as though we will come in under budget this year. Next year with our level funding, this will be okay, even with a slight increase in activities. Lori Wilshire asked how often the Municipal Financial standards were changed. Per Bob, the standards were changed every 18-24 months. This depends if there is a significant change in the market. This will be the third time they have been changed since Bob started in the Welfare office. We have expended $700,000 in general assistant so far in FY 2010. We are less than we were last year at this time. Mediation – Bob Mack presented in Sandy’s absence: Sandy participated in various activities this month: DBHRT, Nashua Community College, school departments and other routine meetings. She was also a member of the Nashua Public Health Week committee. The Victim Offender Dialogue discussion has been scheduled for April 26th. Community Health – Bobbie Bagley presented: During March there were no communicable disease outbreaks, no active TB and only a few latent TB cases—we are following up with them. We’ve administered quite a few vaccinations and hope to get the same response next year. This was because of the H1N1 this year. Dr. Storace asked if we would be doing some advertising. Bobbie stated that they will do that in the Fall, as well as have school based clinics. Dr. Storace noted that people were very aware of washing their hands, etc, because of the H1N1 and would like to see those habits continue. Per Ashley, immunizations will be for the general public now and not just the target groups. Education and advertising will help to keep this going. Bobbie stated that Dr. Montero will be on WMUR tomorrow (April 15th) speaking about H1N1. Next year there will be a single vaccine with the Season Flu and H1N1 combined. Bobbie introduced the new Public Health Nurse, Theresa Calopy, to the Board. Emergency Preparedness – Patty Crooker presented: Both Patty and Ashley attended the CDP Course in Aniston, AL in March through FEMA at no cost. There is further training they want to do, and hope to go with the hospital and medical partners. The CDC technical review of the Emergency Plans was rescheduled because of the weather event. Patty was also at Emergency Operations Center during the rains and flooding. We put together flyers and distributed them in the flood areas. The grant amendment is $364,000 over the next two years. This includes salaries and DBHRT. Ashley mentioned that she and Heidi went to Concord and attended the Environmental Services discussion, which looked at projects and did comparisons. Tomorrow, April 15th, we will host an Epidemiology Workshop at Rivier College with Heidi, Bobbie and Ashley as presenters, and will do an exercise which will focus on an outbreak scenario with half of the attendees as patients and half as Public Health workers. Ashley was requested to work on the Medical Surge Planning Committee for the State. On June 17th, there will be an Emergency Preparedness Conference and she and Patty and representatives from both hospitals have been asked serve on a panel discussion. Patty shared the award that we received for our H1N1 participation, which was signed by the Commissioner – we vaccinated over 4,000 people. The Council of Epidemiologists will have their 1st Disaster Epidemiology Conference, and the state approved Ashley to attend this event in Atlanta in May. 2 Child Care – Kerran Vigroux presented in Chris’ absence: Child Care: This was the “Week of the Young Child”, and Chris had an event at City Hall. The young children came to City Hall for a tour and met the Mayor. It’s Grants season: Things are going well. The new grants are being put in, and Chris will make sure we have all documents we need. The Division is typically at 50% grant and 50% city funding. Our grants are critical to the performance of the Public Health services in the community. Environmental Health – Heidi Peek presented: National Public Health Week was a lot of fun, and we had specific activities. We had some specific activities due to the flooding, one was checking on affected food service establishments during the flood to see what impact there was to the food facilities. We also distributed brochures to the flood area victims. Recently the Texas Road House was re-inspected by Heidi and April. They have scheduled a seminar for the entire staff to educate them. Food sampling was done on hot food for the first time. We think we’ll go back to the chicken salad and tuna salad as that is a better indicator of what is going on. There were no rabies submissions. Bed bugs are constant. We were recently asked to do our presentation at one of the Senior Housing Centers. A lot of people don’t recognize what’s going on until there is a serious infestation. Some people went to their doctor’s for “rashes”. Dr. Storace asked if this was just one incident or if it’s also a problem with rental property. Also he asked if we should talk about this at the Senior Center and other residences. Heidi mentioned that this was done about 3 years ago and the housing authority has a plan in place. We need to do more prevention and get the Senior Center involved. Heidi does not want properties to end up in court; this would defeat the purpose. Dr. Storace felt that this would make a good educational series. Give them signs and let them know what to do with the educational materials. Property owners do not have the money to deal with this. We do have downloads/links and brochures … these are the best resources. Heidi passed out a new policy for Environmental Health, which deals with pre-packaged foods. This is our first policy statement. It has gone to legal, and the copy was just for informational purposes. Public Health and Community Services – Kerran Vigroux presented: Dr. Sharma and Dr. Levi attended the Kick Off for Nashua Public Health Week. Dr. Storace has spoken with Dr. Levi and passed along the message that Dr. Levi loves his award and has it on his desk. Kerran was pleased – many people prepared for this event, from the City, the hospitals, and others. Getting people to walk, passing out pedometers and helping with the presentations created a lot of enthusiasm. We appreciate the Board of Health’s support. Dr. Storace would like to see the pictures. They will be posted on the S drive next week. The banner looked great. Dr. Storace asked if planning would begin for next year. Kerran told him that there is a follow-up meeting on Friday to discuss the events and ways to make next year even better. There were three articles in the Telegraph concerning Nashua Public Health, and several other formats as well. Kerran advised the Board that as requested, they were provided with a list of contacts of the Board members as well as the Division’s senior staff in their folders. 3 Motion to Adjourn meeting. Meeting Ended: 1:10 p.m. Next meeting will be on Wednesday, May 12th, 2010. 4