Health care providers hired to help with vaccine distribution
More than a dozen health care providers have been hired and started work Monday at the vaccine clinic on the 4-H Fairgrounds. Up until now, employees of the Hamilton County Health Department, with support from local fire departments, have been manning the clinic themselves.
“The way that the health department is working right now is unsustainable,” County Commissioner Christine Altman said. “We need to give them the support they need to do the other vital work they’re tasked with, but don’t currently have time to do – things like food inspections, health education, HIV testing, immunizations, and vital records.”
The county is in a position to bring on more contract help as vaccine supply increases. All expenses are expected to be fully reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as part of President Biden’s “American Rescue Plan.”
In addition to bringing in more manpower, the commissioners also secured a larger facility for vaccinations. Last week, the clinic moved from the Annex Building to the Exhibition Hall. The new facility offers six times the space and will allow the Health Department to administer four times the vaccines it started with once more vaccine becomes available.
“The fairgrounds is a county facility and has always been intended to meet county needs,” Altman added. “This space gives us so much more capacity and flexibility.”
In addition to cancelling all events originally scheduled for the Exhibition Hall, the building had to be retrofitted to meet the Health Department’s needs. The county’s Building and Grounds Department installed refrigeration for the vaccine as well as a generator to ensure no vaccine is lost due to power outages. The county’s information technology department ran 600 feet of network cables to ensure necessary internet access and provided dozens of computers.
“The Health Department gets an awful lot of credit for vaccine distribution because we’re on the frontlines of the pandemic,” said Jason LeMaster, interim administrator for the Health Department. “But some of the real heroes are the ones behind the scenes. Dozens of county agencies have gone out of their way to ensure the residents of Hamilton County get the first-rate service they’ve come to expect. We’re lucky to have the partnerships we possess.”