Health Department Poised to Start "Grass Roots" Healthy Start Coalition

One side called it an attempt to steer a community’s healthcare destiny.

The other called it a mistake that would diminish opportunities available to pregnant women and their newborns.

At a public forum held last Thursday at the Port St. Joe library, representatives from the Bay, Franklin, Gulf Healthy Start Coalition and Gulf County Healthy Start sparred over their competing visions of the Healthy Start program’s future.

Established by the Florida legislature in 1991, Healthy Start aims to reduce low birth weight babies and infant mortality, while improving developmental outcomes.

Services include healthcare counseling and education, prenatal and infant screens and parenting support.

The forum was intended to gauge the public’s support for a move by the St. Joseph Care of Florida, Inc. (commonly known as the Gulf County Health Department) to become its own not-for-profit Healthy Start Coalition.

The move would effectively sever the health department’s ties to the Bay, Franklin, Gulf Healthy Start Coalition, based in Panama City.

Gulf County contracts with the non-profit coalition for direct services, which are provided locally by Healthy Start employees Jill Jones and Patricia Rickards.

The coalition receives administrative dollars from the state Department of Health to fund marketing campaigns and needs assessments.

Health department administrator Doug Kent said he’d grown increasingly frustrated by what he described as an inequality in the coalition’s governing board.

Of the 25 member slots available, Gulf County is entitled to two, and currently fills one.

Kent said potential board members find it difficult to attend the coalition’s quarterly meetings, which are held during lunch hour in Panama City.

Gulf County school health coordinator Regina Washabaugh said school health employees can not leave work to attend meetings, and echoed Kent in describing a disconnect between the coalition’s decisions and the county’s needs.

“My feeling is that there are decisions made there that are not in touch with what’s happening in Gulf County,” said Washabaugh.

Kent noted that Jones and Rickards already do double-duty by taking on numerous administrative duties.

The Health Department also supplements the Healthy Start program with money from its general fund.

“Our community’s paying for it, so our community needs to control it,” argued Kent.

Kent expressed his belief that a local Healthy Start board would create greater community “buy in” for the program’s services.

“It’s time to start a coalition that’s grass roots,” he said.

Bay, Franklin, Gulf Healthy Start Coalition executive director Sharon Owens responded by reading a prepared statement and distributing a list of the coalition’s “contributions for the benefit of Gulf County.”

Items listed included:

*$25,000 in coalition funds to assist the Wewahitchka-based teen abstinence support program, “POPS;”

*educational materials, handouts, posters, and client materials are paid for through the coalition;

*the coalition funds travel and registration expenses for Gulf Healthy Start employees to attend state conferences and meetings;

*programs provided to Gulf County by the coalition include the Real Care Baby Simulation and the “World’s Greatest Baby Shower.”

Owens said the creation of a grass-roots coalition would create a “splintering effect on quality care in the region,” and encouraged the health department to continue to “combine forces and services.”

Washabaugh and Jones were critical of Owens’ handout.

Jones said she could “count on one hand” the number of Gulf County women who traveled to Panama City to attend the “World’s Greatest Baby Shower.”

Washabaugh said the Real Care Baby Simulation Program provided by the coalition to Gulf County students attending youth programs this summer had earlier been pulled from Gulf County Schools when the life-like “virtual babies” made students think “it was great to get pregnant.”

“We ended that program, and I believe that was one of our successes,” said Washabaugh, noting that until this year, teen pregnancy was on the decline in Gulf County.

There are currently five pregnant teenagers enrolled in school.

Owens countered by saying that different programs work for different counties, and the coalition was merely offering a “tool” that could be used at the county’s discretion.

Kent continued to stress the need for community control of the program.

With a new $30 million Sacred Heart Hospital slated to open in Port St. Joe in January 2009, Kent said it was time to start preparing for the future.

Responding to Kent’s statement that the hospital would someday provide delivery and ob/gyn services, Owens and coalition members cautioned residents not to put the cart before the horse.

One coalition member who is also a Panama City nurse, argued that most Gulf County residents deliver their babies in Panama City, and should not sever a vital tie to Bay County.

“I think it’s just important to start where the babies are at,” she said.

Kent countered by saying, “Those babies come back to our community. They are birthed there, but they have to be taken care of by our parents here.”

Another attendee, who identified herself as a “new Gulf County resident,” criticized the Health Department’s proposed direction.

“Rather than splitting, you need to be supporting one another,” she said.

Following a second public forum, held Monday at the Wewahitchka public library, the 13-member Health Department board will meet to discuss their plans.

Florida Statutes require perspective coalitions to draft a letter of intent through public notice, listing board members and a geographic description.

Following initial approval, the state mails an application, which prospective boards have 60 days to complete and return.

The application requires, among other provisions, a complete listing of coalition by-laws, articles of incorporation as a not-for-profit, budget and timetable for completing service delivery plan.

Following last Thursday’s forum, Jones indicated that the Health Department planned to move forward with their plans.

“There’s a healthcare change coming into this community. We have to be ahead of the game and we have to start addressing the change,” she said.