Printer-friendly format

Mississippi people could begin to realize the power of public health advocacy when Gov. Haley Barbour on March 30 signed into law one of the most highly watched bills of the 2007 legislative session, Senate Bill 2764. The new law eliminated the Board of Health, deleted the state health officer position, and prescribed new direction for a revamped Board and Department of Health.

Lawmakers declared: “This act shall take effect and be in force from and after June 30, 2007, except for Sections 1 and 2 and Sections 13 through 18, which shall take effect and be in force from and after the passage of this act.”

A citizen’s complaint stimulated multi-front actions and coalesced voices of public health advocates to result in the historic legislation. Through leadership of Senate Public Health Committee Chairman Alan Nunnelee and help from House Public Health Committee Chairman Steve Holland and their colleagues, Mississippi gets a totally restructured State Board of Health. Following a November 2005 report from PEER, the Legislature’s Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review Committee, their attention focused on a chaotic year of unheralded public scrutiny and the Senate Public Health Committee’s “no confidence vote” for the state’s top medical officer.
PEER criticized the Department for mismanagement, failure to involve the Board in structural reorganizations, for restriction of internal and external communications, not using model resource allocation and performance measurement, and loss of public health experience and knowledge.

“The basic problem was the Board,” said Dr. Alton B. Cobb, who served as Mississippi’s State Health Officer from 1973 until 1992. “Now we’re over that hurdle; we’ve got a fresh start. I feel very positive. For the executive director of the agency to have been removed from office by the legislature is a first. (It’s) definitely the first time in state history that both a Board and agency head have been removed. And I think we’ve got some good people on the new Board for a fresh start, including a number of individuals I know as knowledgeable about healthcare and interested in public health.”

Members of the reconstituted Board of Health, effective July 1, 2007:

• Dr. Geraldine Chaney, Jackson
• Elayne Hayes-Anthony, PhD, Madison
• Albert “Randy” Hendrix, PhD, Ovett
• Dr. J. Edward Hill, Tupelo
• Dr. Lucius Lampton, Magnolia
• Dr. Alfred E. McNair, Moss Point
• Dr. Kelly Segars, Iuka
• Carl Nicholson, CPA, Hattiesburg
• Sammie Ruth Rea, RN, Madison
• Ronnie Robertson, Greenwood
• Ellen Williams, RN, Senatobia

Barbour appointed seven to the new Board, with Lieutenant Governor Amy Tuck and Attorney General Jim Hood appointing two each. As the new terms expire or vacancies occur, the governor will appoint all members of the board, in the same manner and from the same districts prescribed, for terms of six years, subject to the advice and consent of the Senate at the next regular session of the Legislature.
Dr. Ed Thompson, state epidemiologist for 10 years before serving as State Health Officer from 1992 through 2002, said the Board’s “regaining credibility” dominates their agenda. Thompson now chairs the department of preventive medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC).

“Nobody could look for and find three better appointees than Ed Hill, Luke Lampton, and Kelly Segars,” Thompson said. “I worked with Randy Hendrix when he was director of the Department of Mental Health, and his focus was always on the function of his department; he’ll be a good member. Geraldine Chaney’s a great pediatrician and also will be a good member. With her previous experience in public health, Sammie Rea also will do a fine job.”

Formerly in the Department of Health’s Office of Licensure and Certification, Rea possibly becomes the first retired public health worker to have been appointed to the policy-making Board of Health.

“According to the legislation, the new Board of Health cannot officially meet until after June 30,” said Lampton, president of the 2007 State Board of Health before its demise. “The new board plans its first official meeting the first week of July, and we all plan to hit the ground running with all of these pressing matters.

“The new board is committed to bringing the department back to the top in public health,” he promised. “The other members impress me greatly as accomplished and experienced individuals. All understand the significant responsibility that they have been given. This group can work together and get the job done. I’m excited for the future of the agency.”

Both Hayes-Anthony and Nicholson bring little or no healthcare experience, but ample academic, leadership, and life expertise to their new posts.

“I started as a reporter and have spent my career in higher education communications,” said Hayes-Anthony, chairman of the communications department at Belhaven College. “Of course, I’m pleased to have the honor to serve, but I also have a deep sense of responsibility. The healthcare we provide the citizens of Mississippi is critical, and this is a critical time–we have great technology and rising costs. I see this responsibility as a service to the State of Mississippi and plan to do the very best I can.”

Nicholson, a certified public accountant who previously served 12 years on the Board of Trustees of Institutions of Higher Learning, expressed amazement at the broad powers and scope of the Board and Department.

“My knowledge of public health had come mostly from reading the newspapers,” he admitted. “Then I had some conversations with the governor and called friends of mine who are knowledgeable about healthcare and about the responsibilities and involvement of the Board — I’d thought little beyond certificates of need.”

Nicholson personally called current and previous vice chancellors of UMC and others whose careers have been in public service to learn about his new post.

“I’m looking forward to serving,” Nicholson said. “I’m not coming to it as a provider but as a user of healthcare — and our employees are users of the healthcare system of Mississippi. I’m a listener first; I tend to gather information and then try to make the best decision.”
The Board’s first meeting does not yet appear on the Department of Health’s website calendar. No copy of the now-dead Board’s minutes beyond September 2006 is reflected, even though agendas for meetings of Oct. 11 and Dec. 13, 2006, as well as for Jan. 11 and Feb. 2, 2007, do appear. Only four then members attended the January event, prompting the then chair to re-name it a “Gulf Coast Public Health Summit.” Seven members who called the February meeting aimed to decide the fate of State Health Officer Brian Amy. Not only did Amy not resign; he hired a lawyer and secured a temporary restraining order to prevent the Board from taking any action regarding his employment status. On advice from the attorney general’s representative, they adjourned without taking any action.

Subsequent legislative action killed both the Board and any other opportunity for their action.

“Of course, this new Board realizes that our primary initial goal will be to have a new state health officer,” Lampton said. “I anticipate that we’ll appoint an experienced interim officer who can lead the agency while a national search is completed to find a permanent officer. However, our understanding of the new legislation is that we cannot do anything officially until July 1.”

Amy’s employment ends Saturday, June 30. With July 1 on a Sunday, and the Board traditionally having met on the second Wednesday of the first month of each quarter, the state likely will be, for at least some time, without an executive director for the Mississippi State Board of Health.

But new Board member Hayes-Anthony, formerly a television producer and now a leader in education and Presbyterian Women circles, predicted, “I’m sure that as the new Board takes its place, communications will be on the agenda. I teach my students to be open, honest, and accurate. I’m certain that will come to the fore as the Board begins to do our work.”

Cobb also sees urgency for the new Board’s work to start soon: “Luke (Lampton) and Ed (Hill) have said the first priority will be to rebuild the morale of the employees: communication, consensus-building, sharing goals, leadership, and rebuilding. I think they need to hit the road and meet with the folks in the counties and districts who provide stability to the public health system.”



June 2007

Tags:

None