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City health commissioner seeks money from city to offset loss
YOUNGSTOWN
A cut in state financial support for the Youngstown Office of Minority Health has prompted city health commissioner Erin Bishop to seek funding from city council to offset the loss for 2015.
Bishop reported at Monday’s health-board meeting that state funding for the Youngstown Office of Minority Health was cut from $60,000 in 2014 to $42,000 in 2015.
The minority-health office, under the auspices of the board of health, sponsors educational and other health-related events. Its director is Leigh Greene-Colvin, for whom the board Monday approved a wage of $7,500 for the period of Jan. 1 to June 30, 2015. Greene-Colvin’s personal-services agreement does not include benefits, and payment is contingent upon availability of grant funds.
In other action, the board accepted the resignation of one of its nurses, Nicole Beckner-Litz, who has taken a position as director of nursing for a sub-acute recovery addiction-treatment facility in Trumbull County. She had worked at the Youngstown Health Department for four years.
Bishop said she has been elected chairwoman of Access Health Mahoning Valley’s board of directors for a two-year term beginning in March.
Access Health Mahoning Valley is a nonprofit agency that helps low-income, uninsured adults in Mahoning and Trumbull counties gain access to free medical care and establish a medical home. Since the advent of the Affordable Care Act, it obtained funding to hire navigators to help people enroll in the federal health system and gain health insurance through an expanded Medicaid program.
Medicaid is a state program that provides health coverage to families with low incomes, children, pregnant women and people who are elderly, blind or have disabilities.