By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The Wood County Board of Health Thursday voted to accept the resignation of its Chief Medical Officer Dr. Steven Dood.
Dood is retiring, Health Commissioner Ben Robison said. Dood has been with the department since 2012. His departure from the department is effective Aug. 26.
Board of Health member DJ Mears questioned whether the district faced a liability if a replacement in not hired before Dood leaves.
Robison noted the board will meet three times before Dood leaves.
He said the department is gathering names of possible replacements which will be shared with the board’s personnel committee. The candidates could also be interviewed by the entire board if members wanted that.
“We will work to make sure they have all the information they need to find the right person to fill this role,” Robison said after the meeting.
The board discussed the possibility of having Dr. John Coates, who is the primary physician at the health clinic, as a replacement or possible interim director.
“He has qualifications and he’s been around the health department, so it seems like a natural fit,” Robison said.
Health districts are required to appoint a doctor as medical director if the commissioner is not an MD or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine. Robison is neither.
The medical director position typically only requires a few hours a month, signing paperwork, involving vaccinations, children with special medical needs and other issues.
Some medical situations could arise where the director needs to be more intensely involved, Robison said. The department doesn’t want to be looking to fill the job at that time of need.
“We want to identify those who have a love for public health and have qualifications and bring those to the board so we can replace in a timely fashion,” Robison said. “We’re going to work to refill this as quickly as we can.”
The board also decided to return meetings to the Health Department offices on Gypsy Lane. In February the meetings were moved to the Perkins Atrium in the County Courthouse because of the large number of people attending.
Those visitors were largely concerned about health department policies related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Few people have attended in the past couple months.
The acoustics in the atrium make hearing those speaking difficult at times.
