Real Change News | Short Takes

October 29, 2009
Vol: 16 No: 47

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Short Takes - 10/29/2009

by: Cydney Gillis , Staff Reporter

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Short on vaccine

County public health departments are important because they take care of giant health problems no one doctor or hospital can.

Case in point: Public Health of Seattle-King County opened special swine-flu vaccination clinics Wed., Oct. 21 to inoculate the folks most likely to be stricken and least likely to get the H1N1 vaccine: Uninsured people through age 64 whose health is already compromised from conditions such as heart problems, lung disease, asthma, kidney disease or HIV/AIDS.

The clinics closed down two days later, having run through the allotted vaccine supply. Public Health spokesperson James Apa says that 3,000 uninsured and at-risk patients have been given the vaccine. But that’s a drop in the bucket. In keeping with a nationwide shortage, says Apa, “Even among the high-risk and prioritized, there’s simply not enough right now.”

Public Health had projected that a quarter million doses of vaccine would be available by Fri., Oct. 30; instead, says Apa, they expect only about one-third that amount. Those at greatest risk of hospitalization or death are pregnant women, people ages 6 months to 24 years, caregivers of babies under 6 months old, and people 25-64 with underlying medical conditions like asthma, heart disease or diabetes. Altogether, the high-risk groups comprise nearly half the county’s population, or about 950,000 people.

Public Health’s flu clinics will continue when the vaccine arrives; for information, go to http://www.kingcounty.gov/health/H1N1.

Not near a computer? You can also call the 24-hour flu hotline at 877-903-KING (5464), staffed by nurses who can tell you about the vaccine’s availability and, if you’re sick, help you decide whether you need to go to the emergency room.
—Cydney Gillis and Adam Hyla

Needy health centers

It’s no secret that the state keeps cutting funds for public health services — $35 million in the last biennium and $4 million for 2009-11 — but what seems largely hidden from public view is the effect: more women, children and elderly folks left on the doorstep of despair while a swine flu pandemic looms.

That’s the upshot of a report released today by the Washington State Budget & Policy Center on the effects of recent cutbacks to local health jurisdictions. The report is based on two surveys of county health officials conducted by the center and the Washington State Association of Local Public Health Officials. They found that 24 out of the 31 health jurisdictions that responded had experienced significant funding cuts and had to reduce or eliminate programs and services this year.

That includes laying off more than 320 public health workers such as nurses and epidemiologists—44 of them in King County and 70 in Snohomish County.

Among the losers, Mason County eliminated a program in which a public health nurse made visits to the homes of at-risk first-time mothers, policy analyst Stacey Schultz of the Washington State Budget and Policy Center said today on a conference call announcing the report.

The cuts come on top of a $200 million shortfall in public health funding that was identified before the recession even began, said Barry Kling, administrator of the Chelan-Douglas Health District. If they continue, Kling said, public health will not only lose its ability to control disease outbreaks, but end up resembling a Third World health system — a warning meant for voters as they consider whether or not to approve Initiative 1033, which the budget center warns would gut public services of all kinds.
—Cydney Gillis

Mercer St. fast-tracked

If you missed an Oct. 26 public hearing on the $100 million Mercer West Project, you’re not alone. So did the dozens of people who signed a last-minute letter of protest by the Seattle Displacement Coalition. The letter objects to the Seattle City Council’s late decision to “fast-track” a special evening public hearing on the project.

Five people showed up to testify on Mercer West: four supporters and one detractor, Kirk Robbins of the Queen Anne Community Council. Robbins said that the Mercer Corridor Stakeholders Group, which recommended the project, convenes at the behest of Vulcan and “has a serious thumb on the scale for property owners in that area,” adding that a meaningful stakeholder process is needed.

In the meantime, “There’s supposed to be a serious Mercer hearing here,” he said, “and this isn’t it.”

Council budget chair Jean Godden responded to complaints about the short notice by saying there will be other opportunities to speak about Mercer West — in council chambers during daylight hours Oct. 29 and Nov. 2-3.
—Cydney Gillis

Students for Tent City

Students at the University of Washington are not taking no for an answer from UW President Mark Emmert. It may have taken them a while to respond to his July 29 letter denying their request to host the homeless camp Tent City 3 on campus, but Emmert’s answer came out in the dead of summer.

With the autumn quarter, Students for Civic Engagement on Homelessness (SCEH) have regrouped and are now trying to negotiate Emmert into a small compromise: that he allow faculty and students to formally interact with Tent City 3 when it stays on the grounds of churches close to campus.

They’re also organizing an exhibit on displaced peoples, both at home and abroad, and plan to hold another “teach-in” style public forum in January on bringing Tent City 3 to campus for a three-month stay.

Emmert told the students this summer that hosting a tent city “would further complicate the business of the University.” Nonsense, responded SCEH president Abbey Pearl: the university’s “very purpose is to think up complex things and bring them into the realm of the possible! Hosting Tent City is actually a rather modest ambition compared to the things our people do here every day.”

Emmert also wrote that, while working to understand homelessness is part of the university’s core mission, setting up a homeless community is not. “You can’t possibly be suggesting,” the students responded, “that as scholars our job is merely to understand problems, but not to get our hands dirty in attempting to wrestle with them in real life?”

Get more information on Students for Civic Engagement on Homelessness at sites.google.com/site/tc3atuw
—Cydney Gillis

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