— from Tom Eversole —
April 1-7 is National Public Health Week, and I want to thank Mark Tompkins and all the San Juan County Community and Environmental Health staff for their good work promoting and protecting the health of residents and visitors of our island community.
In America we take population health for granted. (Nobody had a parade for all the people who didn’t get TB this year.) But maintaining our public health security is hard work day in and day out. When public health doesn’t succeed (you can’t drink the water, obtain a shingles shot, or hire a caregiver), we tend to blame public health workers rather than the systems that didn’t support them.
Small county health departments are usually under-resourced and under-staffed. Public health employees are mission-driven professionals, who go above and beyond to assure the conditions we all need to live, work and play in a healthy community. Thank you!
We owe thanks to a lot of dedicated public servants, whom we frequently don’t hear about until something goes wrong. Thank you for appreciating them Tom.
Thank you Tom. You are soooo right! Long hours and hard work with a large layer of concern for others included always. Joanne