Health officer Pino returns after internal review

State health director is assigned a mentor, training after vaccine email

Raul Pino, state health director in Orange County, must communicate at least weekly with a mentor and allow an assistant director to review any staff-wide emails he writes before sending them, according to a six-month corrective action plan imposed as a condition of his return to work.

The plan, obtained by the Orlando Sentinel through a public-records request, “is intended as a tool to improve performance,” according to the document sent to Pino by Mark Lander, interim deputy secretary of county health systems for the Florida Department of Health.

Pino declined to discuss the plan, though the document bears his signature acknowledging it was discussed with him.

Pino, 58, returned to work Tuesday, following a two-month paid absence imposed in the wake of a staff-wide email he sent Jan. 4 expressing his frustration with the low vaccination rate among employees. “I have a hard time understanding how can we be in public health and not practice it,” he wrote.

His email revealed fewer than 14% of the 568 employees had been fully vaccinated with a complete series and booster shot.

When questioned about Pino’s status i n January, state spokesperson Weesam Khoury explained, “As the decision to get vaccinated is a personal medical choice that should be made free from coercion and mandates from employers, the employee in question has been placed on administrative leave, and the Florida Department of Health is conducting an inquiry to determine if any laws were broken in this case.”

The corrective plan, which refers to the state agency ’s inquiry as a “management review,” requires Pino to work with his executive managers to “eliminate access to employee health data by managers without a business need including aggregate and de-identifiable data.”

Requests for the inquiry’s investigative summary and findings were routed through a public-records portal.

Pino, hired in May 2019, has served as the voice of Central Florida’s fight against COVID-19, providing advice and information in both English and Spanish in over 150 public briefings. He often shared the microphone with Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, a critic of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

A county health department works to prevent epidemics, encourage healthy behavior and respond to disasters.

In Orange County, the agency’s health responsibilities include overseeing programs intended to provide prenatal care to pregnant women, immunizing children, testing and providing treatment of sexually transmitted disease and offering family-planning counseling.

His mentor was identified in the document as Dr. Ulyee Choe, state health officer in Pinellas County since 2015; board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases; and an associate professor of Medicine with the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine in Tampa.

According to the document, state health officials expect the mentorship of Pino to continue beyond the six-month plan.

The Cuban-born Pino also must participate in u n s p e c i f i e d “c u l t u ra l sensitivity training ” and communication training for senior leaders. No explanation for the training sessions was provided in the document, which calls for weekly status meetings with Pino to “discuss your progress.”

It warns, “Failure to correct the deficiencies noted above may result in disciplinary action.”

shudak@orlandosentinel. com

Dr. Raul Pino, the state health officer in Orange County, was suspended following an email to staff about vaccine levels.