Never-say-die health board plans education campaign

It’s said you can’t put a price on health but the Lehigh Valley Board of Health will give it a shot in order to persuade the cash-strapped counties that a regional department is a good long-term investment. 

And if that doesn’t work, the board might seek to put the proposed agency to voter referendums in Northampton and Lehigh counties. 

That was the general consensus when the never-say-die health board met Monday night – its first meeting since the Lehigh Valley Health Commission voted Jan. 10 to freeze its budget. The health commission is composed of the nine Lehigh County Commissioners and nine Northampton County Council members. The Lehigh legislators voted 5-3 (with Andy Roman absent) to continue the board’s budget but Northampton County Council turned it down 5-4. 

“I think probably our major effort over the next couple of months has to be education, education of the public and education of the county commissioners and council people as to what is the difference between public health and why its important and the private health or medical system,” said Health Board Chairwoman Ilene Prokup. 

Prokup said she and Board Vice Chairman Robert Black met with Lehigh County Commissioner Percy Dougherty and Northampton County Councilman Michael Dowd after the Jan. 10 meeting to get feedback and direction.  

Black said Dougherty and Dowd thought Health Board member Dr. Eric Gertner did a good job at a meeting last July in laying out statistics on how poorly the Lehigh Valley fares on most public health measures. But the whole board needs to do better at showing how those statistics could be improved by a regional public health agency, Black said. 

“The way I read it, there’s one, possibly two minds we have to change” on the health commission, he said. 

“There is certainly data that could be developed on what is the impact on society economically if you reduce the incidents of low birth weight babies,” said Board member Dr. David Lyon. “A profoundly retarded child who is pre-term, your talking many hundreds of thousands of dollars just for one child.” 

The number of babies born with low birth weight can be reduced by making sure their mothers get pre-natal care early enough, Prokup explained later. Other jobs for a regional health department could include inspecting restaurants and day care centers, running vaccine clinics and other prevention efforts, controlling disease epidemics and preparing for a bio-terrorism attack. 

First, the health board has to straighten out whether it can continue to do business – with the private non-profit Two Rivers Health and Wellness Foundation footing the bill. Two Rivers had pledged a $150,000 grant to pay for the board’s work but that was thrown into question when the health commission froze its budget. 

Lehigh County Commissioner Percy Dougherty, a health department advocate, suggested that the board could continue so long as another entity, like Two Rivers, pays for its clerical help, solicitor and advertising of its public meetings directly. Prokup, a professor of public health at Kutztown University, said she will ask board solicitor Michael Gaul if that’s legal. 

Cost has been the biggest stumbling block for creating a regional health department. In July, the health commission rejected a $10 million annual budget for the proposed department. Each county would initially pay $500,000 of that and the rest would come from state and private foundation funding.