The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
No longer displaced, the health district looks to tackle delayed initiatives
After being displaced for 2 ½ years, the Lake County General Health District is finally settling into its new home.
The health district opened its doors to the public March 21 at its new office at 5966 Heisley Road in Mentor.
“It went extremely well,” Health Commissioner Ron Graham said of the move. “It went very smooth.”
Smooth is good news for Graham and the health district, who have been on a bit of bumpy ride over the past few years.
Just a few months before he was scheduled to become the health commissioner, a five-alarm fire destroyed the Joel F. Lucia Public Health Center, at 33 Mill St. in Painesville. That August 2014 fire brought in every fire department in Lake County and several from Geauga and Cuyahoga counties. More than 100 firefighters were on the scene.
“It’s been an incredible learning experience,” Graham said. He was the deputy health commissioner at the time, but had already signed his contract to take over as commissioner in January 2015 from the retiring Frank Kellogg.
“We learned a lot about teamwork and coordination,” he said. “Certainly we would not have been successful without the city of Mentor, the city of Painesville, the Lake County commissioners, the fire departments, and our insurance provider.”
In the interim, the health district was spread out across multiple floors in the labyrinthine Victoria Place in Painesville.
The fire put a lot of initiatives Graham and the health district’s board had on hold.
“What we hope to see is a renewed effort and public presence by the health district because now we can really pick up the enhanced marketing,” he said. “We’re prepared to put additional efforts into the opioid epidemic.”
On April 20, the Health District is pulling together mayors, city manager and township trustees along with representatives from Lake Health, University Hospitals and Cleveland Clinic, the Lake County Coroner and the Opiate Task Force.
“(We’ll) look at what services are being provided in Lake County and seeing how each individual community can pick from a gap-analysis standpoint what other interventions might be possible and how we can better coordinate on a larger scale to enhance the efforts of the task force,” Graham said.
They’re also looking at ways to help the county’s aging population, he said.
“Those are kind of our two key initiatives we’re initially launching here in 2017,” Graham said.
The health district has also expanded its Wednesday hours for multiple services, a plan that was originally scheduled to start in 2015.
Wednesday hours will run from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. for services including, but not limited to, plumbing and sewage permits; food service licensing; immunizations; Women, Infants and Children nutrition program; naloxone distribution and education; community education classes; vital statistics; and HIV testing and prevention.