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DUKES COUNTY HEALTH COUNCIL
Minutes
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Call to order
Dedie Wieler, Chair, called the meeting to order at 7:35AM. Dedie informed the group of the next meeting date, December 3rd. which accommodates Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and both November and December meetings.
Attendees included: Thomas Bennett, Eleanor Beth, Jacque Cage, Cindy Doyle, Jay Ferriter, Judie Flanders, Chris Knowles, Sarah Kuh, Rex Jarrell, Cathryn Mancuso, Cynthia Mitchell, Karen Meeks, Jo Ann Murphy, Gayle Poggi, Oceana Rames, Connie Teixeire, James Weiss, Dedie Wieler, Terre Young Guests, Krystin St. Onge, Client Services Director , AIDS Support Group, Cape Cod
Vote to approve the Minutes of the September 24, 2009 meeting with the following changes, the spelling of Connie Teixeire’s name, and the fact that the Tribe is funding the Elder Affairs Caregivers’s Journal project completely: Moved and seconded; minutes approved.
Rural Scholars and Youth Task Force: The scholars did an outstanding job! They met with over 200 community members and the YTF realized that their own people interviewing the same people would not have garnered the same responses, as confidentiality and anonymity are so important to this topic. The scholars’ report was extensive and their project presentation was exceptionally well attended. The YTF plans further work with the community, which seems ready to do the work relative to addressing the issue of substance abuse. The students’ power point presentation will be posted on the County’s web site.
Chris Knowles, Public Health Commission gave an update on his group, which has been meeting since May of 2009. They are working on creating methods to give access to various groups and tools to offer organization more abilities to get out emergency information. An example is their hope to get e-mail or cell phone numbers of residents for the dissemination of information similar to Oak Bluff’s water crisis information being dispersed by a business to its customer.
Kristen ST. Onge joined us from the AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod to describe the work of her group, on not only the Cape but here on the island. They are currently supporting18 of 25 people here with aids and have a census of 160 including Cape folks, serving people from 14 to 80 years old. They are a free program with 70% of their financial support coming from DPH. Citizenship is not an issue and some of their services include; a food pantry, transportation, insurance coverage, and overdose prevention. They will be starting an education program at Dukes County Jail in October, with referrals to testing sites when inmates are released. Included in their future plans will be community education on Hepatitis C & B and a volunteer program for the homeless and transportation to a Cape dental care clinic. Their
physician, Dr. Laura Miller will be seeing island patients at the Rural Health Clinic on December 11th.
Dedie Weiler informed us that the hospital has a scheduled conference call with DPH on November 4th and the hospital is hoping to be able to proceed with the community benefit funding.
Dedie adjourned the meeting at 9:06 AM.
Respectfully submitted,
Terre D. Young, Secretary
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