Will County Public Health & Safety Committee met April 7.
Here is the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
Ms. Tyson led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
III. ROLL CALL
Chair Rachel Ventura called the meeting to order at 10:00 AM
| Attendee Name | Title | Status | Arrived |
| Rachel Ventura | Chair | Present | |
| Meta Mueller | Vice Chair | Present | |
| Mica Freeman | Member | Present | |
| Debbie Kraulidis | Member | Present | |
| Raquel M. Mitchell | Member | Present | |
| Annette Parker | Member | Present | |
| Margaret Tyson | Member | Present |
Present from State's Attorney's Office: K. Meyers.
IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
1. WC Public Health & Safety Committee - Regular Meeting - Mar 3, 2021 10:00 AM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mica Freeman, Member SECONDER: Meta Mueller, Vice Chair AYES: Ventura, Mueller, Freeman, Kraulidis, Mitchell, Parker, Tyson |
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mica Freeman, Member SECONDER: Raquel M. Mitchell, Member AYES: Ventura, Mueller, Freeman, Kraulidis, Mitchell, Parker, Tyson |
1. Sunny Hill Nursing Home Updates - February 2021
2. BOH Minutes January 20, 2021
(Susan Olenek)
3. Approved BOH Minutes 2-10-21 Special Meeting
(Susan Olenek)
4. Approved BOH Minutes 2-17-21
(Susan Olenek)
VI. OLD BUSINESS
1. Monthly Update from Will County Health Dept.
(Sue Olenek)
This item was discussed after Item #2 under Old Business.
Ms. Olenek stated I will start by piggybacking on Dr. Burke’s presentation. Last year and this year, the IDPH made available to local health departments an additional grant program. We are going to take part in it this year for Naloxone. This year we will do the same process as last year. With our $15,000 grant we purchase Naloxone and give it to Dr. Burke for her program. That is $15,000 of Naloxone she and the community can use. I wanted to let everyone know this will be happening. April 5th through the 12th is National Public Health Week. This is the second year local health departments have been doing very little in terms of a celebration. We have all been busy responding to the pandemic. Mr. Steve Brandy is working on doing PSAs and sharing information through interviews with our staff on what public health is and what public health means. Those will be on our website, but that is all we are going to do right now. Illinois is at 1.26 million COVID cases and 21,395 deaths. Will County is at 69,835 COVID cases and 955 deaths. One of the things we have done with our communications firm is a huge upgrade on our website. When you go to the front page of the website there is a dashboard at the top that is very easy to read with numbers and graphs. You will see from the dashboard, the number of cases has been fairly consistent across Will County. However, the allotments of vaccine, as you can see on the graph, has been unsteady. In terms of vaccine administration; in Illinois there has been 6.4 million vaccines administered and 2.4 million people are fully vaccinated; about 19% of the population. Illinois is vaccinating about 107,000 people per day. In Will County we are vaccinating about 5,000 people per day. Our goal is between 7,000 and 8,000 per day. So far, we have vaccinated 304,000 people and 110,000 people are fully vaccinated; which is about 16%. In a very short period of time, we have vaccinated a lot of people and continue to do that. In Region 7, which is Kankakee and Will Counties, we are seeing an increase in our positivity rate; it is up to 4.9%. In Will County it is up to 5.3%. We need to make sure we stay vigilant. The cases are creeping up in certain areas. Just because we received the vaccine does not mean we can take our masks off or go back to life as we knew it. Dr. Patel informed our group last evening of a rodeo and a couple of large weddings being held in Will County. There were reports of no masking and large gatherings. These are the kinds of situations and events that will increase the transmission and increase the number of cases. I don’t think any of us want to start going back to tier 1, tier 2 or tier 3 and seeing places closed. We really need to stay vigilant and get that message out. Mr. Brandy is preparing a press release that will go out by the end of the week, regarding large gatherings, staying vigilant, practicing the 3- Ws and all that information. It is important for us to stay informed and watch the number of cases. We are operating four community vaccination sites. The largest vaccination site is at the old Toys R Us in Joliet, which opened last Wednesday and in four days vaccinated 3,401 people. The plan is to be open Tuesday through Sunday. We were looking at 800 doses per day, but it is a very large site and can accommodate more. The State is willing to give us additional vaccines for this site. We have made that known and starting today we are going to increase the number of vaccines available. We are looking to open more appointments at that site in the future; we would love to get up to about 1,600 or 1,700 doses per day. The site can definitely accommodate it and with the assistance of the National Guard doing most of the staffing, we are able to do that. One of the positives of having a National Guard site, is that your allocation of vaccines goes up. They still want the local health department to put in a portion of that, but our allocations will go up. This weekend, we are seeing a little bit of a bump in our allocation. They are agreeable to increasing the number of appointments to 1,200 per day and they will cover those allocations. The mass vaccination site is in good proximity to public transportation, highways and it is in an area a lot of people can get to. I have heard people complain they have to drive 20 or 30 minutes to get the vaccine. Honestly, people drive 20, 30 or 40 minutes to go out to dinner so they should be able to drive 20 or 30 minutes to get a vaccine. These are by appointment only so it is not like they are going to drive there and be turned away. We have a site in Wilmington that opened a couple of weeks ago and a site in Monee which will open this week. We had to close the Wilmington site this week because of staffing issues. They will be open next week for second doses. We are securing some stable staffing through a temp agency for further clinics. The State wanted us to open the Toys R Us site a week earlier than we could staff it and we had to shift people around. The goal is to have every one of these sites manned every single day, providing vaccines. The Joliet West site is vaccinating thousands of people a day. They are doing very well and we are going to increase their allocations as we get more from the State, so they can do more. Our Health Department site is vaccinating between 400 and 600 people a day, Monday through Friday. This Sunday, we will have a clinic at the Health Department, for the second dose for the USPS, which is around 400 people. We are ending our strike teams on April 20th, for the time being. When we were targeting certain sectors, like manufacturing and educators, we had strike teams going out and providing vaccines at the workplaces. We are ending the strike teams and allocating those resources to our mass vaccination sites. It is extremely difficult to operate five sites in addition to the Health Department and have people going out in the field, so we are going to eliminate that. On April 12th we are opening vaccines to everybody; 16 and over or 18 and over; depending on whether you get Pfizer or Moderna. We are opening it up to everybody. It is just too difficult to screen for chronic illness or comorbidity and the State has provided us with guidance that says you don’t need a doctor’s note, so we are just taking people’s word for it. About 90% of the population has some kind of comorbidity or health issue. We are opening it up to everybody; it will be easier for them and us. We are looking to gear up our homebound program, which is the only program we will utilize the strike team. We hope to work with some of the County EMS people to assist with doing the homebound. We have been gathering names and addresses, working with home health agencies and our community providers and we hope to get that off the ground within the next couple of weeks. I hope you have seen there has been some level of improvement with the communications. You should be receiving the newsletter from the communications firm, The Force. It is a good newsletter with a lot of pertinent and current information. We have been looking at a media plan The Force submitted to us. We wanted to get their idea of a comprehensive plan. This plan contains promotional items. You have probably seen our t-shirts and stickers. We have vaccination card sleeves coming and we have flags outside all our sites so people know where they are. Whenever you do campaigns like this, you need to have some promotional items. Everyone working at the sites receive a t-shirt so they are readily visible. The Force has worked with us to provide signage at all of the sites. The Toys R Us and Monee sites, have nice, big signs in Spanish and English indicating it is the COVID site. We want people to readily see it. They are working on a vaccine campaign that will roll out later this month and into May; called “Believe in the Vaccine”. We are trying to target certain populations that have some hesitancy, white males over the age of 55 typically have vaccine hesitancy, as well as the Latinx and black community. This campaign is designed to reach out and provide information and resources to try to get them to change their mind and get a vaccine. There will be different ways we target communities based on the community itself. They are going to be using social media, looking at mobile apps. I was on Pinterest over the weekend and an ad popped up for the Will County Health Department, We Will Win. I sent a screen shot to a bunch of people. It is working, it is out there and it is visible. They are also posting ads on Facebook and Instagram, PSAs on YouTube, and on cable networks, TLC, HGTV, Food Network, BET, TRU-TV, A&E, Discovery, CNN, CNBC, FOX News, Oxygen, Lifetime, TV Land, and TLC. We are going to use local newspapers, local radio commercials and some direct mail to target the Latinx and black community zip codes. We will use a more grassroots approach to reaching those people. I was just on a meeting with the South Suburban Immigrant Project, Spanish Community Center, Will-Grundy Medical Center and Aunt Martha’s. We were talking about equity and what the Health Department is doing to try to reach those communities and I mentioned the media plan. The media plan is extremely expensive. The cost submitted was $768,000. I submitted the media plan to Bronner over a week ago to see if this would be approved for FEMA funding. They thought it was exactly one of the things FEMA would pay for or reimburse us for. I reached out to them yesterday for an update. It is a lot of money, but I think it is money well spent. They have really done a good job and they are easy to work with. We have received a lot of complements from the public via e-mail. Our Facebook page is getting nicer, people are not so nasty anymore. I hope we can move forward with this plan and have it reimbursed by FEMA. The variants are occurring throughout Illinois. I am not aware of any variants observed or detected in Will County. The State is seeing a preponderance of B117, which is the UK variant and it seems to be connected to and easily transmitted through youth sports. IDPH has instituted a surveillance program. They are asking community providers, hospitals and commercial labs to enroll and participate in a variant surveillance program. They would send samples and it would undergo genomic sequencing to determine if it is that variant or one of the others. Last week we posted for an Equity Manager. We had some community based organizations that have rightfully expressed concern and interest in making sure the vaccine is rolled out in an equitable way to all communities, whether they are the senior, Latinx, black, brown, homeless, poverty stricken or whatever group to make sure it is rolled out and provided in an equitable fashion. This is something I am committed to doing. Admittedly it is extremely difficult, but we are going to get this done. Everybody is part of the community, so if you are not serving a portion of the community, your whole community is at risk. If we don’t address certain cultures, ethnicities or demographics that are not getting access to the vaccine that puts our entire community at risk. That is true of any kind of vaccine or illness; HIV, TB or polio or anything, your community is healthy when everybody has access to preventive measures and vaccines. We are committed to doing that. We put together a job description for an Equity Manager to work on the vaccine roll out. I have one applicant. My goal is to take a candidate to our BOH meeting on the 21st. I don’t like to go with one applicant, but this particular applicant has a lot of good experience, has several years of experience and has the kind of experience we need in terms of grassroots outreach and working with different communities, different social economic individuals and different demographics. If I don’t get any other applicants, I am still going to interview this person and as long as they interview well, I will go through the process of checking references and do a background check, like we do with every applicant. I am not going to dig my heels in and say I will not do anything because I only have one applicant. We need to move forward with this and if I think this individual can do the job, I will bring it to the BOH for approval on the 21st. We are receiving information from IDPH of additional funding from the federal programs being funded. Our Community Health Center was notified last week they will be eligible to receive an additional $3 million from the new Act. We received notice from IDPH yesterday that health departments throughout Illinois are eligible to receive a portion of the $124 million. Moving forward, we are going to be looking at ideas to use some of this funding to enhance our programs and services even more. We are still operating all 38 programs. Every program the Health Department has ever had is still operating. We are going through the application process for our substance use disorder treatment program. There is a licensing process we have to go through with DESA and our compliance manager is doing that as we speak.
Ms. Ventura stated I want to commend you and your team. In the last month things have really accelerated quickly; that is a testament to you listening and working with a lot of communities, the new PR firm and others. Thank you so much for doing that. I have been a tough critic, but you really stepped up to the plate and I think that needs to be said. Again, thank you very much. I am excited about the mass vaccination centers. They have been rolling out very well and people have been able to get vaccinated. I have an appointment on Thursday. I think other people are excited as well. You have really turned things around here in Will County. I am getting questions from people who want to know if the different types of shots are unique to different locations?
Ms. Olenek replied no, we cannot do that. We don’t get enough of one type of vaccine nor are we provided with just one or two kinds of vaccines. We don’t know. You may get Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer or Moderna.
Ms. Freeman stated I am very excited to hear about all the progress our County is making in our COVID-19 response. Ms. Olenek, you should pat yourself on the back because that is largely due to you. I loved hearing about the joint efforts and success stories coming with everyone working together. Could you repeat the number of vaccinations Will County is giving daily?
Ms. Olenek responded we average about 5,000 per day. Our goal is to get to 7,000 or 8,000 per day. The mass vaccination site at Toys R Us will infuse more inventory into the County. With all these community sites, the mass vaccination site and all our other providers we should be able to increase that to 7,000 or 8,000 vaccinations a day.
Ms. Freeman asked how long will the Toys R Us vaccination site be open? Ms. Olenek replied we were told the National Guard will be there through June.
We hope they are there through June because they are providing a lot of staffing for us. We provide a site coordinator, a couple of prep nurses, a couple of greeters and exit staff and people in the background who make sure the vaccines get there and the supplies are available. They are doing the bulk of the work at the site. As soon as we hear that they will no longer there, our goal is to continually staff it. When the National Guard leaves, we will have to find some way to staff it too, because we want to keep the mass vaccination site running.
Ms. Freeman stated it was an awesome event to watch. They really stepped up and I was very impressed. Is our County in Phase 1b plus?
Ms. Olenek replied yes.
Ms. Freeman asked does that include construction workers?
Ms. Olenek replied, I believe it does, I will have to look. On Monday we are opening to everybody
Ms. Freeman continued the IDPH site says it does. My husband has a coworker who called two days ago and was told he could not get a shot yet.
Ms. Olenek stated they have changed things quite a bit, if they have any type of chronic condition or comorbidity. Ms. Olenek read the list of eligible occupations and according to the list construction workers eligible.
Ms. Freeman stated I will have him call back. You sent us a link to sign-up to volunteer. It is very easy to use and I would encourage everybody to get on and sign up to volunteer. There are several openings. You don’t have to be a nurse; you don’t have to give a shot. You can be someone who walks around or makes sure no one is having an adverse reaction. Ms. Olenek, thank you. Take a breath every once in a while and relax, you have earned it. Let’s get this thing done.
Ms. Mitchell stated I volunteered when I heard there was going to be a vaccination site in Bolingbrook, but I guess they didn’t need me. I am available any time. We had a couple of events in Bolingbrook. Is that going to be permanent? Can it be permanent? I see three sites in Joliet, one in Monee and Wilmington, but nothing in Bolingbrook. I would really like something at this end of the County.
Ms. Olenek replied the Bolingbrook site is not permanent. We were approached by the Bolingbrook Fire Department and they wanted to set up a site. They get the vaccine from us and they provide the staffing. We would love to have sites all over the county; sites in ten different places, but you have to staff them all and that is difficult. All the collar counties are competing for agency and temp workers and nurses. We are still finding those people, but the majority of our staffing is volunteers. They are getting harder and harder to keep on as summer is coming with nice weather so we need volunteers and we need people to staff these sites moving forward. That is why we are concentrating our efforts on a few sites because they are larger sites and they can move lots of people through them each day. It maybe a little inconvenient for people to drive, but it is efficient and that is why we are looking at that. We looked at the JJC North Campus in Romeoville as a mass vaccine site. However, it does not have public transportation and the IDPH took it off the list. We would love to man the site, but we have no staffing right now. We are trying to stabilize our staffing with what we have in Monee and Wilmington. If you look at the outlay of the county, south of Laraway Road there is no opportunity for people to get vaccines at CVS, Walgreens, Meijer or Marianos. Everyone in the northern part of the County has that ability. We are trying to keep those clinics in Monee and Wilmington to serve those people because they have very little opportunity.
Ms. Mitchell stated one of the things I noticed was a couple of other programs came out here. I am wondering if we could have more in this part of the County. It does not have to be permanent but apparently you had more than enough volunteers, because I was not chosen.
Ms. Olenek replied you can volunteer at one of our sites.
Ms. Mitchell asked is it possible to get something else going? Apparently we have volunteers in this part of the County, so let’s do more if we can. I am more than willing to help.
Ms. Tyson stated thank you for your wonderful presentation. Are you accepting walk-ins at the end of the day so you don’t have to throw away any vaccines?
Ms. Olenek replied it depends on the site. On April 12th we are going to send out and publicize the links for all of our sites. People will probably still have to wait, but there will no longer be registration and scheduling. It will all be direct scheduling so that is going to help. We do have people who don’t show up. We have some people who are nice enough to call and cancel and then we fill the slot immediately. We are by appointment only; we don’t want people to just walk in. At the Toys R Us site, we are appointment only, but we had some people who wanted the vaccine but did not have an appointment. They were told if you want to wait until the end of the day or if you want to come back at the end of the day; if we have a few doses we need to put into arms, we will come and get you. There were five or six people who waited in the parking lot, and when we were all done with our appointments, we went out in the parking lot and brought those people in. I think five of them got a dose. At the Health Department site we have an arms list. This is for people who are on the registration list, who want the shot, but they have not gotten it yet. At the end of the day, if we have four, five or six doses left, we will make the calls and they come in and get their dose. We have had staff wait here for 40 minutes for all of them to get here to get their shots. We don’t want to waste a single dose.
Ms. Mueller stated I agree we have come a long way in the last month. I am excited to see all this progress. Please let us know as soon as possible, what you need for staffing if the National Guard is leaving in June. We have funds available to help cover these things in the American Rescue Plan. The sooner we know what you need, the faster we can help provide that. I think there has to be a solution for something in the Romeoville, Bolingbrook and Plainfield area. There has to be something out here that would work that has public transportation. It is sometimes hard for people to get down south, it is not an easy drive for people to make quickly to get their vaccine taken care of. I definitely would like to see that. I am glad the Toys R Us location is open, it is a little closer for people and it is near the expressway and that is helpful. We have a big concentration of people up here.
Ms. Kraulidis stated it was nice to be at the grand opening on Wednesday and see the whole process. It is impressive. I am getting questions from people wondering if there are any sites that have a certain vaccine, if they prefer one over the other. Is there any information we can give them or any sites tending to do a certain one because the National Guard is supplied with one in particular? Is there any information on that?
Ms. Olenek replied we are getting Pfizer at the National Guard site. The problem is that can change and it can change pretty quickly. Last week I worked at the Monee site doing registration. We put on our website it was Moderna because that is what we thought we would have, but it turned out we used Pfizer. People came in and said “Oh I thought you were doing Moderna, but you are doing Pfizer, I’m happy”. We don’t want people to not come because of a certain vaccine and if people come because of a certain vaccine and we don’t have it, we don’t want them to be upset, walk out and not get their vaccine. I will bring that to the group. We would love to have enough of everything so this is always Pfizer and this is always Moderna, because that would make it a lot easier for us. If you have a site operating with both and administering both first and second doses, you have to keep all of that straight. It sounds easy and it is easy once you get it figured out and everyone educated, but it does cause some logistical challenges.
Ms. Kraulidis stated you mentioned there was not much Johnson & Johnson at that point. Has anything changed or is that still the status?
Ms. Olenek replied we should have gotten 2,000 Johnson & Johnson doses yesterday, which is the most we have ever gotten. The first shipment was 1,200. Hopefully, that will increase. Our goal is to use the Johnson & Johnson for the homebound program so people don’t have to revisit those individuals. It depends on how much we get.
Ms. Kraulidis asked if people are concerned about allergies, is one better? It seems the Johnson & Johnson are better for people who have dealt with allergies. Is that true? Is there any information for people who have an allergic reaction or anaphylactic shock in the past?
Ms. Olenek replied the IDPH and CDC websites have information about allergies. A person’s best bet is to talk with their physician. They should talk with their medical provider and depending on what level of allergic reaction they have had, would determine it. At registration we ask people if they have allergies to previous medications, whether it is a vaccination or whatever and we ask them if they have allergies to any food or environmental allergens. Then the information is put into the system. They are tracking all of this and they are looking at it. I don’t know how quickly they are able to look at this and make determinations, or if that will be done in coming months and years. If someone has a question or issue or if they have had severe reactions to other vaccinations, they should speak with their primary care doctor.
Mrs. Berkowicz stated regarding the Toys R Us clinic. I received the notice for that at almost 8:00 p.m. the night before; so that was a little disappointing. I had no idea it was happening. I don’t know if that was a lack of communication or if something fell through the cracks.
Ms. Olenek replied something fell through the cracks. I sent an e-mail asking if our County Board, BOH and Governing Counsel were made aware of this? The response I got was “no”. So we said get it out. I apologize for that. I expected the communications firm to do that, but we are doing so many things and I apologize for the oversight.
Ms. Kraulidis stated it would have been very helpful if something is happening in our district to get the information and not have to make five or six phone calls to find out what is going on.
Mrs. Berkowicz stated one of the things you mentioned was the difficulty of getting staffing for these clinics. In the northwest part of the County, many of my neighbors have resorted to going to Cook or DuPage County to get the vaccines, while others are going over near O’Hare. There are a lot of people here who are waiting. Hopefully, my husband is getting his vaccine on Saturday; but we are not quite sure if it is confirmed or not. It is very confusing. He has received multiple e mails and none of them really say he is confirmed. The e-mails are very confusing.
Ms. Olenek asked which site does he have an appointment at?
Mrs. Berkowicz replied in Joliet, but I don’t know which site. He received this e mail before the Toys R Us site was open. I can ask him if he has received any other e-mails.
Ms. Olenek suggested they talk off-line and she would help Mrs. Berkowicz.
Mrs. Berkowicz continued this is indicative of what some people have been telling me. Rather than spending so much money on media, can we spend it on staffing and get another clinic up and running? I really think that would be effective.
Ms. Ventura stated perhaps it doesn’t have to be an either/or. What I am saying is perhaps Ms. Olenek can do both. We need more staffing and Ms. Olenek made it clear earlier that when the National Guard leaves we are going to have to replace that staffing. Instead of saying take money from the media, we need our media; but we also need staffing. We should work with Ms. Olenek to make sure both are happening, even if it means we need to use some of our media to get the word out that we need to hire; or if we need to ask the Finance Committee for more money, or work with FEMA and Bronner. We hear what you are saying. Staffing is an issue and Ms. Olenek made that known that while we are bringing people in, we are all competing for those resources. Our questions should be “Ms. Olenek how can we help make sure you have the staffing when you need it”.
Mrs. Berkowicz stated Ms. Ventura I want it noted and I want to make sure that this is in the minutes that I did not complete my sentence, that I was speaking to Ms. Olenek and that is exactly what I would like. I would like Ms. Olenek’s feedback. We are here to support Ms. Olenek and I want to make sure that is noted. Ms. Olenek what do you think about that? Would that help you accomplish what you are trying to do?
Ms. Olenek stated we would love to have a site in the northern part of the County; like Romeoville, Bolingbrook or Naperville. However, staffing is an issue. It is not just temp staffing, you have to get non-medical and medical staffing and we have to provide site coordinators. Site coordinators are individuals who are in charge of the entire site. The Health Department, is still doing all of our programs. I can’t pull people from our grant funded programs positions with grant deliverables that we need to provide. We have a select number of people in the agency getting training tomorrow as site coordinators. I am going to be one of them; I will be available if I am needed. We have several of our managers, we posted externally to bring people in and hire them to be site coordinators. I don’t mean this negatively, but it is easy to say; you need more staffing, so get more staffing; but, that takes time. It takes time to gather people, to on-board them, to train them and we are doing that. We will have to man the National Guard site. I would love to have another site such as the JJC North Building, maybe one in Naperville, but right now we are trying to stabilize our staffing for the sites we have. I am not saying that will take a month to do, it might just take us a couple of weeks and then we can move on to the next site. Our goal is to increase the number of sites. However, everyone can’t have a site in their community, it is not feasible nor is it efficient, so we have to look at the pros and cons.
Ms. Ventura stated the upgraded website is really fantastic. Ms. Olenek it has been really great to see the changes in the last month and how quickly you and your staff have changed some of the things, met our requests and it is quite impressive. Good job to you, Ms. Jackson, EMA, Ms. Anderson and everyone who has been a part of this to make this good for everyone in our community.
2. Opioid Update
(Dr. Kathleen Burke)
This item was discussed as Item #1 under Old Business.
Dr. Burke stated Mr. Palmer pulled together a meeting for the Sheriff and myself and we are moving forward with our discussion around substance use and the incarcerated. I am pleased we have a plan starting to take place. I have been invited to a learning collaborative and I invited others to start talking to the State. They engaged a consultant to work with Illinois to implement some of these new strategies for the incarcerated population. Will County is one of the counties they are considering to be part of the project. I will find out more today and will be able to report back next month. I wanted to give you an update about the Rapid Response team. I talk a lot about this because it has been so effective working in our community and it has stretched our boundaries of access. I had my folks do a summary on how many people and how many boxes of Naloxone we have been able to place with people who are risk. The Federal Government gave us money to give two boxes of Naloxone to people who are receiving methadone. That kicked off when COVID hit and we were unable to see people in person. In 2020 we distributed 416 boxes and year to date we have distributed another 56. The value is it connects us to the doctors and staff at the methadone clinics so we are able to work with them, not just on their medication, but also on other strategies for recovery. We have two people placed at Family Guidance who work with people. The other part of our Rapid Response team is going into the community to develop relationships and distribute Narcan. We have 12 team members; three stepped back, but we added three. They are considered contract vendors; they are not employees. We have been able to reach 97 micro-pantries with Naloxone. We worked with the Health Department and we are able to collaborate with the folks who work on food shortages and in each micro-pantry we have placed Naloxone. Naloxone is the only opioid reversal strategy that keeps people from dying because of an overdose. Most of the folks we are seeing in the community are ages 25 to 60. We are trying to keep better data regarding demographics, it is a little hard because it is a one-on-one thing, but we are working toward that. The next project that evolved from the Rapid Recovery is our housing project. I was gifted $150,000 from Joliet Township, two years ago, to assist people in the Joliet area to receive treatment. Because treatment access has been difficult in our area, we have been able to use those funds to place people who are asking for treatment, right way into housing at the hotels. Then, our folks follow-up and remain in contact with them while they wait, sometimes two or three days for admission to treatment. To date, we have housed 21 people. That has been working very successfully. We have gotten feedback that once they get into treatment, they are staying in treatment. We have a strong relationship with the hotels and have been able to support our programs at Stepping Stones, Brandon House, Cornerstone and all the agencies our recovery coaches work with to assist people in making the warm handoff or linkage into treatment. This is when we often lose people; the time in between, they want help but they don’t know how to manage their disease in the interim and that is critical. I feel very successful in that regard. In Joliet, Officer Lopez works with us and calls us often when we have people who are ready for treatment.
Ms. Ventura stated the first program you were talking about; is that the same program Kane is using that was in the news?
Dr. Burke replied they have their own program. This is a collaborative that is put together, but each county should be different, it is to model the resources available. Next week there is another conference where the program from Kane is going to be featured. This is a health consultant from the East Coast who has been working around the country to assist in putting together projects with the jail systems. They are similar, but not exactly the same.
3. Monthly Update from Sunny Hill Nursing Home
(Maggie McDowell)
Ms. McDowell read the attached report into the record.
Sunny Hill Monthly Update to Public Health & Safety, April 7, 2021
(Discussion)
VII. OTHER OLD BUSINESS
VIII. NEW BUSINESS
IX. PUBLIC COMMENT
Mrs. Jakaitis announced there were no public comments.
X. ANNOUNCEMENTS/REPORTS BY CHAIR
XI. EXECUTIVE SESSION
XII. ADJOURNMENT
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