Taking health on the road: county health department seeks RV, pursues lead detection efforts
The Health Department would like to set up a mobile clinic to provide various services, such as health checks and vaccines, and had issued a request for proposals. Only one bid came in — for a 25-foot and a 30-foot recreational vehicle from Don Brown Bus Sales, Inc. of Johnstown, Public Health Director Paul Pettit said during Monday’s Human Services meeting.
Pettit asked that the county reject the bid in lieu of finding something for a smaller price tag.
“We've been working on trying to get a mobile RV in place with some of the COVID money. We could have utilized one of these to do things through all of the last couple years with our testing clinic and also the vaccines,” Pettit said. “Unfortunately, when we put it out, all things came in over our price point. So I'm working with Jeff to modify that and put it back out again, and hopefully get something that's within the budget. So we have to reject this one.”
The bid would have been about $40,000, which is several thousand more than what’s available, he said. When asked for other uses of the mobile van, Pettit pointed to migrant outreach.
“So we do go to the farms and different things, we take it out to different clinical activities in the evening. And it’s available for other departments, essentially a mobile vaccination clinic,” he said. “But if we use it for other purposes, we're also looking to get a sprinter van, and they are in Orleans County. So we'll have different types of approaches and so forth … and to have it available, again for, hopefully, we don't have to use the word pandemic again, but for a similar situation.”
Pettit proposed an inter-municipal agreement for a shared position of director of health promotions and epidemiology coordinator to the current agreement between Genesee and Orleans counties. The annual stipend for shared administrative staff listed in this agreement will increase to $8,500 annually, effective Jan. 1, 2023.
A year from then, effective Jan. 1, 2024, the contract would include a 2 percent cost of living increase. Related expenses to this move are eligible for state aid, the resolution states.
Epidemiology is the study of the presence or absence of diseases, including the frequency and origins of diseases that occur in different groups of people.
Human Services Committee members were also asked for preliminary approval of a grant from the Housing and Urban Development agency to support a lead removal effort in Genesee, Orleans, Livingston and Wyoming counties.
The total grant of $2,455,000 would help minimize hazards, especially from older homes that may contain higher levels of lead in paint.
“So you're dealing with homes with younger kids, typically. We obviously are going to get their blood level tested when they want to do it, and if it's elevated, that's where we get involved. But there's probably a lot of scenarios where these homes just don't have the kids anymore, and you're not getting blood tests,” he said. So the XRF machines (considered the gold standard in lead paint testing) are pretty amazing. And they literally — you could shoot this wall and it can tell you all the layers of paint. They literally can read it right through a textbook. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty amazing.”
The committee agreed to pass the resolution on to the Ways & Means Committee, and then on for a final vote by the Legislature. The $2.455 million grant would be for related lead detection and treatment through December 2026.
