of board members and community pro- fessionals to evaluate these concerns and to bring recommendations to the board. The situation was aggravated by false public claims that Lubbock would “become the largest city/county in the United States without public health ser- vices,” which was stated on a public peti- tion posted on a
MoveOn.org website by members of a group called the Health Coalition of Lubbock. This misinforma- tion excited a lot of people and esca- lated the matter to the point where our local county medical society, DSHS, and the Texas Medical Association became involved in this local partisan political matter.
It has been my impression that a pri-
mary intent of the Health Coalition of Lubbock has been to expand the size of the health department in a time when most cities are decreasing the size of their health departments. The health department was never in danger of clos-
ing. The “health conflict” that arose was political in nature and directed both at increasing the size of government in Lubbock and at attacking those who were seeking to reduce the duplication of services and consolidate essential services to reduce the size of Lubbock’s government.
The committee I chaired believes the Lubbock Health Department continues to function very well. This was verified by the excellent handling of a recent hepatitis A incident in which one worker in a local restaurant was identified as in- fected with hepatitis A, with restaurant employees and several thousand patrons potentially exposed. Due to the rapid re- sponse of the health department and the City of Lubbock’s Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security to provide hepatitis A immunizations in a quickly organized clinic, no reported cases of hepatitis A resulted from this incident.
Our committee unanimously recom-
mended that immunization and sexually transmitted disease services were essen- tial public health services and that the City of Lubbock should continue to ad- minister oversight. Our committee was politically bipartisan and included mem- bers of the Health Coalition of Lubbock. A majority of Board of Health mem- bers thought it important to keep the immunization and sexually transmitted disease clinics in a single location. I dis- agreed with the board’s decision and am of the opinion that immunization clin- ics, which are frequented by children as the patients, should be separate from sexually transmitted disease clinics. The Lubbock City Council will make further decisions. n
Dr. May is a retina surgeon in Lubbock and a member of the Lubbock Board of Health.
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48 TEXAS MEDICINE February 2012
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