Berkshire County boards of health look to regionalize services

At least half of the 32 cities and towns in Berkshire County are working on a grant application that could lead to a more collaborative approach to providing public health services in the region.

While the local boards of health have been loosely affiliated through the Berkshire County Boards of Health Association for decades, individual communities often lack the staffing to adequately meet the broad range of health-related duties they are required to carry out, according to Sandra Martin, the health agent in Egremont.

As of mid-February, Egremont, North Adams, Alfred, Becket, Hancock, Lanesborough and 10 other Berkshire County communities had signed onto a state grant application that would cover the planning costs for enabling cities and towns to pool health-related staff and expertise. The planning grant is a prerequisite for applying for a $150,000 implementation grant, Martin said.

Especially in small communities, she said, boards of health get stretched thin by the 10 to 13 responsibilities they are obligated to fulfill, ranging from disease control to restaurant and septic-tank inspections to dealing with public nuisances.

Under a regional arrangement, she said, communities would be able to choose which public health functions they would handle on their own and which they provide through a contract. The regional association, Martin said, could be organized so that individual health departments would specialize in particular services and share their expertise with other towns.

“We’re going to build a flexible structure, and it’s going to be up to the communities to decide how to use it,” Martin said.

Martin said that the need to create a new regional structure became clear a few years ago, when local communities sought to fulfill emergency planning objectives set by the state. The main focus of the effort was to prepare for a flu pandemic or other public health crisis.

“We really couldn’t make an emergency-response plan town-by-town,” Martin said, noting that people wouldn’t necessarily stay within their town’s borders to seek assistance.