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Mahoning County Health Care Coalition to meet on Ebola
YOUNGSTOWN
The Youngstown District Board of Health has made Erin Bishop the health department’s commissioner.
Bishop had served as acting health commissioner since February 2011. Her annual salary — $71,659 — remains the same as she was receiving as acting commissioner, said the Rev. Lewis Macklin, health-board president.
He said at Monday’s meeting Bishop was promoted because she has been “doing the job” and she embraces the priorities of the board of working toward reducing infant-mortality rates and health-care disparities in the community, especially among the minority population.
Bishop, with Patricia Sweeney, is co-chairwoman of the Mahoning-Youngstown Birth Outcome Equity Team, which has identified and prioritized areas to improve the overall infant-mortality rate. Bishop also is a member of the Ohio Institute for Equity in Birth Outcomes Leadership Team representing all the Ohio Equity Institute Teams.
Bishop reported to the board the Mahoning County Health Care Coalition will meet in special session Thursday to ensure that the area’s health-care organizations are prepared to deal with the Ebola virus should it strike here.
The health coalition consists of the city and county public-health departments, emergency-management agency, emergency medical services and hospitals.
The meeting was convened by the Mahoning County District Board of Health because it receives federal dollars through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for emergency preparedness, said Sweeney, county health-board commissioner.
“We don’t think it likely Ebola will come to Ohio, but we need to be prepared,” Sweeney said.
She said the meeting will ensure that everybody is on the same page, that all protocols and communications are in place and that the health-care community is ready for Ebola.
“We routinely meet and drill and conduct table- top exercises to prepare for emergency situations,” Sweeney said.
“Ebola is a disease that is very difficult to get. It is not an airborne disease; to be infected requires contact with body fluids of an infected person,” she said.
According to the World Health Organization’s website, Ebola virus disease, formerly known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission. The average EVD case fatality rate is around 50 percent, but case fatality rates have varied from 25 percent to 90 percent in past outbreaks.