What Georgians say... - Partner Up! for Public Health

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Suzanne and Chris Burton on August 13, 2010 at 05:34 AM said:

My wife and I have been social workers in Northwest Georgia for 20+ years primarily working in Mental Health. We are fighting mad that the sorry state of affairs of the Georgia mental health system has gone beyond crisis to critical condition with no real meaningful response from advocacy groups or the citizens of this state.

Rick Fehr on August 12, 2010 at 08:40 AM said:

I have been in Public Health as a Health Department supervisor for over thirty years. Over those thirty years I have seen a serious deterioration in public health funding, compensation, staffing, employee morale and in support by the Georgia State Legislature. Add in greater responsibilities and greater population to be served and it is no surprise that public health in Georgia is in crisis. In fact a one of the Georgia Legislature's committees publicaly stated that Georgia's public health was in crisis three years ago, prior to the economic downturn in 2008. The main mission for public health in Georgia is prevention of health problems. Certainly just preventing human suffering from health problems would be more than sufficient justification to provide a top notch public health program, but as it costs substantially less to prevent than to treat human diseases it make dollars and cents' common sense all the more reason to strongly support public health. And yet most of our elected officials in effect fiddle while public health goes down in flames.

Kellly on August 4, 2010 at 05:38 AM said:

Floyd County isn’t the only county suffering from lost positions. Haralson County lost a full time secretary and a full time environmentalist. Now while it is small, one person can’t possible be there present 100% of the time and get the work done. Also Polk cut a long term employee to part-time and now they just have one full time secretary and one full time environmentalist and one part time environmentalist. There is also a vacancy in Paulding County for an environmentalist. While they have cut two programs, they’ve added body art sudios and are constantly looking to add new regulations. Pay never increases with more responsibilities, training, certifications. The environmental staff in Georgia is much worst off than nurses, but all you ever hear about is the low paid nurses who by the way got an enormous raise a couple years ago, some close to 10,000.00/year. Now that’s a raise! Environmental staff’s work affect all of GA’s residents, not just those seeking nursing services that by the way could get them elsewhere. Who else does restaurant inspections? They need someone in the organization to go to bat for them.

K. Martin on July 19, 2010 at 05:21 AM said:

Alot of the problems in public health are also due to poor management on the district level. There are plenty of employees who don't perform with no repercussions whatsoever while others consistantly perform, but aren't in the "click" so they don't see promotions or raises". When they implemented Georgia Gain and it's performance evaluations it was an attempt to correct this problem, but again it was based on supervisor opinion. I think an outside audit needs to be done to weed out the non-performers from the District level down. We have seen serious cuts on the County level while the District adds new employees. And why do long-term employees 15+ years get terminated or part-timed when new employees are kept full time? It it was a real business we would be out of business.

Traci Mullis on June 21, 2010 at 10:46 AM said:

“I have worked for public health for 23 years. My salary is low compared to other health care facilities, but I love public health and what it does and means to our citizens. We have not seen a raise in three years and 3 years before that. My staff and I continue to work hard to serve the people of our community to the best of our ability. With severe budget cuts and some important programs going away due to money, it is becoming very difficult to give help to our clients. I would like to see public health grow instead of die. I feel public health is a very needed asset to our health care system especially during these difficult economic times.”

Judy H. Goggans on May 18, 2010 at 09:58 AM said:

I have worked in public health for 30 years and have seen a lot of changes occur some for the good and some for not so good. Public health has always been thought of as a clinic for the lower income and no insurance population, but this is no longer the case. As more people loose their jobs they are seeking a different type of health care and therefore we are seeing more of the blue collar and white collar population. We have always been considered a wellness clinic, but now have more & more request for treatment and diagnosis of illnesses. The Tift Regional Medical Center is considering sponsoring a primary care clinic in our facility and hire a nurse practitioner for the clinic. I see this as a beneficial addition for our surrounding area.

Michelle Fry on May 11, 2010 at 05:01 AM said:

When I see how the lack of Georgia public health staffing contributed to the peanut debacle this past year it breaks my heart. The shortcomings of Georgia's public health system not only endangered the health of our citizens and those nationwide, it crushed the community of Blakely during a period of economic unrest - which still persists today. And in the aftermath...will anything change? We can only hope so.

See: http://www.ajc.com/news/blakely-peanut-illness-little-286617.html