Memorandum
Date: February 25, 2020
To: The Honorable Moke Simon, Chair, Lake County Board of Supervisors
From: Denise Pomeroy, Health Services Director and Gary Pace MD, MPH,
Health Officer
Subject: Approve Letter of Support to Sonoma County Board of Supervisors and authorize Board Chair to sign
Executive Summary: The Sonoma County Public Health Laboratory (SCPHL) is currently in need of our support. The lab is located on the Chanate Road property, which Sonoma County is attempting to sell. In the next few years, a new laboratory facility is needed, but budget planning is starting now for this expensive facility. It is not certain that a new lab facility will be possible, or even that the current lab will remain operational, because of the current budget deficit facing Sonoma County Department of Health Services (DHS). DHS leadership is seeking various solutions to the deficit. Unfortunately, one of the potential cutbacks being considered by early 2020 is closing down the Sonoma County Public Health Laboratory. Closing down the laboratory would be disastrous for communicable disease control and surveillance in our area.
SCPHL is the last public health lab standing between the State lab in Richmond, CA and the Humboldt County lab. Essential public health lab functions need to be kept local to ensure timely lab services. Public Health Laboratories were not instituted to generate revenue; they provide public services to the entire population that commercial laboratories do not offer, such as disease surveillance, outbreak investigations, shellfish, dairy, and rabies testing. PHLs will always depend on some government funding to perform tests that are very time-consuming, not profitable and benefit individuals that cannot afford testing.
There is a potential for increased Illness and death rates from communicable, food-borne, and water-borne diseases in our County without accurate and timely lab results from a local public health laboratory.
This closure may also impair our emergency responses to novel influenza, measles, and other epidemics.
I respectfully request the Board of Supervisors support this effort by way of authorizing the Board Chair to sign the attached letter of support.
If you should have any questions, please contact myself or Gary Pace at 263-1090
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Recommended Action: Approve Letter of Support to Sonoma County Board of Supervisors and authorize Board Chair to sign