||| FROM SAN JUAN COUNTY COMMUNICATIONS |||
A community gathering of thanks for former San Juan County Health Officer Dr. Frank James will be held Wednesday May 22, 2024. All San Juan County residents are invited to join San Juan County at the San Juan Islands Museum of Art to thank Dr. James for his 31 years of service to the community.
Doors will open at 1:40 p.m. and the program will begin at 2 p.m. with an open house to follow until 4 p.m. San Juan County would like to thank San Juan Islands Museum of Art and the Rotary Club for sponsoring this event for the community.
Dr. James has led San Juan County through many public health changes and challenges over the years. Some of the highlights for Health & Community Services under the leadership of Dr. James as the Health Officer include:
- San Juan County has ranked #1 or #2 in the state for Health Outcomes since 2011, when county and statewide health outcomes were first measured by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
- Smoking in public buildings was the norm when Dr. James started as Health Officer in 1992. In 2005, Dr. James, former HCS Director John Manning, and former Public Health Nurse Martha Sharon drafted an ordinance prohibiting smoking on property owned by the County, expanding the 2005 state law.
- In 2009, Dr. James prepared islanders for the novel H1N1 virus (also known as swine flu) and worked with local health care providers and pharmacists to ensure vaccines and medication were available in the community early in the pandemic.
- In 2014, Dr. James led the county in the response to a measles outbreak after an infected county resident returned from overseas travel. Dr. James and the Health & Community Services staff worked closely with the community to ensure a swift response to limit the spread of this highly infectious illness.
- One of the most notable recent public health highlights includes Dr. James earning due praise for his work for the residents of San Juan County during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. San Juan County fared eight times better than the next best county in Washington. Across the nation, San Juan County remains an example of what to do during a global pandemic, as the county had the lowest COVID case rate in the nation for the first two years of the pandemic. This is in no small part due to Dr. James’s leadership, collaboration with the community and commitment to protecting islanders.
If you are not able to make this gathering but would like your message of thanks to be included, please reach out to Kyra Jahanfar, Program Coordinator – Emergency Preparedness & Communications, at kyrak@sanjuancountywa.gov to learn of opportunities available.
San Juan County Council appointed Dr. Herbie Duber as the County’s new acting Health Officer. Dr. Duber is the Washington State Department of Health Regional Medical Officer for Northwest Washington. In this role, he supports the development of healthcare policy and programs across the state and serves as a key liaison between local public health and the Department of Health.
About San Juan County’s Department of Health & Community Services
San Juan County’s Department of Health & Community Services is responsible for community and environmental health, mental health and substance abuse programs, senior services, affordable housing projects, and more. The department has staff and offices on Lopez, Orcas, and San Juan Islands. For more information about San Juan County’s Department of Health & Community Services, visit www.sanjuancountywa.gov/1777/Health-Community-Services.
Just wanted to say thank you to Dr. James who has been a gift to our county throughout the past two decades, the last half very challenging, overseeing and guiding the hospitals, clinics, and FIRE/EMS in public health, during the most serious and challenging times (and time of unknowns). He brought to SJC Public Health his tireless dedication of work in research, endless hours reading through studies, medical journals, published research, clinical trials, collecting and disseminating data, (much of this done after hours while at home ) to guide our health providers, keep our public safe from illness, viruses, inspecting for food-borne illnesses, educating food handlers, monitoring seasonal flu outbreaks, tracking vaccines and clinics, and preventing the spread of disease. Throughout his long career as an M.D. MPH, serving dutifully and quietly behind the scenes, he also has developed quite a circle of friends and colleagues who all work in PH and research, whose expertise in the fields of Epidemiology, Virology, Infectious Diseases, Veterinary Medicine, Marine Biology, Molecular Biology, at UW, WSU-DVM, UCLA, UC-Berkeley, and other top uni’s out of state, as well as the CDC, has allowed him the benefit to make a quick call to verify / compare, ask questions seek answers, without having to claw through those tedious phone trees and recorded messages, wasting precious precious time, to seek the answers to all that came through the SJPublic Health Dept. during his tenure, in an effort to help us survive these challenging stressful times we are living. For that alone we should all be so grateful. I first met Dr. James in 2004 at OIFR headquarters in Eastsound, when he was invited as guest speaker to our special EMS drill in preparation for the annual special “Mass Casualty Fire/EMS drill” held in coordination and collaboration with Sheriff Dept, USCG, Navy, Airlift, to help OIFR develop a training and mitigation emergency practice plan for Orcas and surrounding islands, in an urgent “all hands on deck” response for a possible scenario should a ferry, or cruise ship from international waters, carrying hundreds of people, suddenly arrive offshore seeking our aid and assistance aboard ship with an outbreak of SARs H591 Avian Influenza, and this was during only the outbreak of the SARs “Bird Flu” in 2003-2005. We spoke for several hours after the drill event as I was covering the night duty shift, and learned so much more about his fascinating career and work in public health. Mahalo Nui Loa Dr. James for your incredible service, compassion, education, and dedication in service to your community.