Health department sets sail at full steam ahead

The Wayne County Health Department needs steady leadership after a tumultuous year, and Dan Burk has been chosen to guide the department as its new director.

During the nearly 12 months without a director, Burk has tackled increasing responsibilities within the department. He added duties while supervising the environmental side without the director, then took on even more when the clinical director left for another job during July.

Serving as interim director enabled Burk to prove he’s the right person to lead the department forward.

“I feel confident that we can set the ship on a path, keep it on that path and move forward without any crises,” said Burk, who has been with the health department nine years after previously working about 16 years in the county’s jail.

After interviewing two candidates, the Board of Health voted 5-0 during a Sept. 3 meeting to recommend Burk as the new director. Wayne County’s commissioners then accepted that recommendation 3-0 during their Sept. 4 meeting to remove Burk’s interim title.

“He has a ton of experience, long-term experience in public health and has moved up through the ranks and demonstrated that he could carry out the duties of director,” said Dr. Paul Rider, chair of the health board.

Commissioners all offered their congratulations to Burk. Mary Anne Butters expressed appreciation for his efforts in “taking over the reins of a runaway team.”

Added Commissioner Jeff Plasterer: “I think Dan has done a great job as an interim, and I think he’ll do a great job as the director.”

Burk said the past year has been difficult for the department. For a while, the plan was to move forward without a director, leaving Burk in charge of the environmental aspect, dealing with areas such as inspecting restaurants, septic systems, swimming pools and homes for lead, and a clinical director leading medical aspects such as immunizations and harm reduction. That changed because too much administrative work was placed on the county’s health officer.

“It’s been really tough, and not necessarily the job itself,” Burk said. “The job is still getting done on the clinical side and the environmental side. It’s the unknown that has made it tough on the staff.”

Now, with Burk in charge, he’ll hire two deputy directors: one for environmental and one for clinical. Dr. David Jetmore, the health officer, has also indicated his intention to retire, so a replacement for him is also needed.

The Health First Indiana program provides significant opportunities for the department because of extra state funding that will reach $1.5 million next year; however, it mandates additional core services. That has required additional budgeting, contracting with other service providers and expanding programs.

During this time, the department hasn’t just been missing administrative staff. There are constant open positions within the department. Burk said a lot of employees have done an “amazing job” filling dual roles, and he credited medical assistant Dalton Keller, medical clerk Levi Gray and school liaison Genaro Sparks specifically for helping maintain services.

“The staff deserves a break, they deserve help and they deserve recognition for what they’ve done in this interim time period,” Burk said.

Serving as the interim director provided Burk a head start on transitioning to the director’s role.

“It’s helped me a lot,” he said. “It’s provided educational things that I knew some of, but I’ve obviously taken a deep dive in the last month, month and a half into these programs and have learned quite a bit, and still have a lot to learn. I’m going to rely a lot on my staff to help me out. I’m not a medical professional, so I’m going to rely a lot on my medical staff to help me out in that aspect, and in turn, I’ll help them out on anything they need in an administrative role.”

COVID vaccine

Rider told the health board members that this year’s COVID-19 booster shot is a better match for the current virus mutations. He recommended that vulnerable residents receive the vaccine when it’s available and consider available treatments if they do contract the virus.

The vaccine will only be good for a matter of months, Rider said, because the virus is the fastest mutating virus that’s been seen. Despite that, the numbers of deaths and hospitalizations have been reduced.