Local Health Agencies, Hurt by Cuts, Brace for Flu — The West Ranch Beacon

The recession has drained hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of workers from the state and local health departments that are now the front line in the country’s defense against a possible swine flu pandemic.

Health officials in affected states said they had thus far been able to manage the testing and treatment of infected residents and mount vigorous public education campaigns. But many said they had been able to do so only by shifting workers from other public health priorities, and some questioned how their depleted departments might handle a pandemic reports the New York Times.

“I’m very concerned,” said Robert M. Pestronk, executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. “Local health departments are barely staffed to do the work they do on a day-to-day basis. A large increase in workload will mean that much of the other work that is being done now won’t be done. And depending on the scale of an epidemic, capacity may be exceeded.”

At a news conference on Monday, Dr. Richard E. Besser, the acting director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the public health system was in “a tough situation.”

“We hear about tens of thousands of state public health workers who are going to be losing their jobs because of state budgets,” Dr. Besser said. “It is very important that we look at that resource because this outbreak was identified because of a lot of work going on around preparedness.”

Mr. Pestronk’s group estimates that local health departments lost about $300 million in financing and 7,000 workers in 2008, a year when more than half of all agencies shed employees. There were about 160,000 health department workers in 2005, according to the group. Mr. Pestronk said he expected to lose at least another 7,000 jobs this year.

State public health agencies lost an additional 1,500 workers through layoffs and attrition from July 2008 to January 2009, according to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. The group anticipates 2,600 job losses in the coming fiscal year.

South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control, which also staffs local health departments, has lost $30 million in state money and a third of its 6,000 employees over the last decade, said Thom W. Berry, a spokesman. The department is currently investigating several “probable” cases of swine flu.

In New York City, which has the highest concentration of confirmed flu cases, federal grants for emergency preparedness have fallen to $23 million, from $28 million a year ago, said Andrew S. Rein, the city health department’s executive deputy commissioner.