Health Department Closes Jan. 1 In Shaker Heights

SHAKER HEIGHTS, OH — Starting Jan. 1, 2018, Shaker Heights will join the Cuyahoga County Board of Health (CCBH). The only change in services for residents will be blood pressure screenings, which the city's health department offered.

Joining the CCBH will cost Shaker Heights about $117,000 annually, according to Jeri Chaikin, Shaker's Chief Administrative Officer. However, even with the annual fee to the CCBH, the move to shut down the city's health department will save Shaker Heights about $245,000 per year.

Changing state laws prompted the shuttering of Shaker's health department. Spokespeople for the city said in late August that all city health departments are now required to be accredited by the federal Public Health Accreditation Board by July 1, 2020. If the health departments fail to do so, they will lose funding from the Ohio Department of Health.

Only two cities in Cuyahoga County have their own health department: Cleveland and Shaker Heights.

The loss of the city health department will be a drawback for the Shaker Heights Schools. Immunization clinics will be held twice a month by the CCBH. The Shaker Health Department was available every day.

That said, only 181 students in the public schools were taking advantage of the city's immunization services, Chaikin said. With CCBH, no child will be turned away for inability to pay for services.

With less than 4 percent of Shaker residents making use of the municipal health department, and the department starting to bleed money, the city made the decision to shut down the health department. According to Chaikin, the majority of the residents using the department were just getting flu shots.

"We are sorry to lose the convenience of a locally based health department," says Mayor Earl Leiken in a statement on Aug. 28, "but the lack of local resources to comply with the new state accreditation requirements and the large financial savings make a case for the change."

The county is currently opening a clinic at South Pointe Hospital in Warrensville Heights. That clinic will specialize in immunizations.

The CCBH also has a facility in nearby Lyndhurst and a second in Parma that would be able to provide 19 of the 20 services currently offered to Shaker Heights residents by the city's health department.

A spokesperson for the CCBH did not immediately return Patch's request for comment.

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