June 10, 2021 at 1:12 p.m.
Health plan approved by Cass Board
The agency has done assessments in the past, but this will be the first action plan to extend and improve on programs to improve health for county residents.
It calls for cutting tobacco use and exposure, encouraging healthy behaviors to prevent obesity and encouraging healthy parenting.
Current tobacco use in Cass County is 17.4 percent. The health department's focus will be toward preventing young people from starting smoking in the first place and on cutting the rate of smoking among women who are pregnant and who are raising young children.
In 2012, Richter reported, 38.3 percent of Cass County adults were overweight and 26.7 percent were obese. That same year, 14 percent of ninth graders were overweight and 7 percent of ninth graders were obese.
The plan calls for increasing education about healthy eating and on encouraging at least 150 minutes a week among adults for physical activity. Children and teens should have moderately intense activity at least one hour a day, she said.
The plan identifies existing agencies and programs which offer information about healthy eating and exercise and will encourage wider use of those programs. It also cites existing programs which can expand upon the county's outreach to provide healthier outcomes for babies and for growing children
In 2011, Cass had 14 percent of children under age 18 in out of home placement. Parent support resources and support for children had improved that percentage and the county's cost for out of home placement, but this plan takes the effort farther.
It identifies specific programs available from county and Leech Lake tribal services to community civic clubs, faith-based organization, medical clinics and law enforcement, all of which can be called upon to help improve families and help parents and grandparents provide safer more successful home environments.
There will be a focus on quality of life during early childhood to promote child development and to prevent child abuse.
The county board voted Tuesday to deny two grievances from HHVS employees. The grievances now will move to arbitration.
In one case an employee objected to contract rules governing lunch breaks. The contract calls for lunch to be from noon to 12:30 p.m., but states if an employee is asked to work during lunch break an alternate time as close as possible to that time shall be allowed.
HHVS director Reno Wells said federal regulators had required him to make available employees throughout the day without breaks of service for the program in which the contesting employee works. Therefore, she was asked to work between noon and 12:30, but was given a different lunch time.
In the other case, an employee who had worked under a flex time option at the Walker HHVS office, took a transfer to work at the Backus HHVS officer where flex time was not offered. Flex time is when an employee with supervisor approval works four 10-hour days rather than five eight-hour days in a week.
Subsequently, the transferred employee asked to stay in Backus, but return to the flex time schedule. Because the Backus office's primary use is for the land department and because the land department works on eight-hour days, the HHVS employee request for flex time was denied. She is appealing that through the grievance.
Richter presented a report to the board on Ebola, calling the risk to Cass County residents "very low."
She said people initially become infected from a fruit bat or primate (apes and monkeys). Events occur when people ate or touched an infected primate, she said.
It then spreads human to human in most cases and can only transmit through bodily fluids. There are no known cases of cats and dogs being infected either in this country or in Africa.
There is no evidence it can spread through insects such as mosquitoes, she added. She recommended people who have concerns should search the Centers for Disease Control website, because it is updated daily.
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