LETTER TO THE EDITOR, Susan Lukwago, Liberal
I am writing this letter in response to the opinion expressed by Ms. Carolyn Huddleston — “Why work the hours when grants will pay?”
Ms. Huddleston, thank you for your continued interest and research of the finances of Seward County Health Department. I am sure you are aware that it takes time for our Administrator and our Program Coordinators to gather all the information you are requesting. They each take time away from serving clients and patients to respond to your requests. However, I know they are each good with doing this as we want to be transparent. After all, we are a public health department.
Your interest in us though is tenacious and so I had to respond to your latest letter to the editor.
I am grateful to have worked for and with Seward County Health Department for just over 19 years. We used to be open five days a week. Then we started paying attention to something that was happening — we had few clients coming to see us on Fridays. We would be fully staffed on Fridays, just as we were every day — 15-20 staff — and maybe five clients/families would come to see us. So we took a look at that, discussed it and realized it did not make financial sense to be open on Fridays. Also, the cost to open and run the building — heating, cooling and clearing the sidewalks and parking lots in the snow — did not make sense for the small number of clients/patients we served on Fridays.
So our administration talked with county administration and our commissioners, and we moved to longer days on Monday through Thursdays and to be closed on Fridays.
Ms. Huddleston, have you come to see us at the Health Department? We really do welcome you. With their permission, you could even talk to some of our clients and inquire about their satisfaction with the care and services they receive at our Health Department. I believe you will find that the majority are satisfied with our services and are not deprived by the hours we are open.
Finally, I offer this point respectfully: funding organizations — be they KDHE or a foundation — do not give grants for nothing. We do work for the money we receive from grants. All our grants have deliverables. We are accountable to do the work we said we would do in order to receive the grants. Seward County Health Department would not continue to be funded if we were not fulfilling our mission to “work together to support and serve the health and wellbeing of the people of Seward County and the surrounding areas.”
Grants are not renewed if the work is not done. Each of us at Seward County Health Department are proud and grateful to fulfill our mission and to do the work for which we are funded. Come see us. We will show you.
