The Lewis County Public Health and Social Services building is pictured Monday, May 7 in downtown Chehalis.
Lewis County will be closing its immunization clinic on Aug. 16, part of a broader shift in public health agencies moving away from direct care.
“There’s been kind of a paradigm shift in public health,” said Lewis County Public Health and Social Services Director Danette York. “We just figured this was a good time to go ahead and close it, since there’s plenty of places for people to get their immunizations.”
The clinic, which is run by Public Health, is set to lose immunization nurse Jane Sheldon, RN to retirement. Rather than hire a replacement, the county decided to close the clinic rather than continue making up its revenue losses from the general fund.
“It doesn’t make sense for us to use tax dollars to supplement someone else’s services,” York said. “It’s not really being good stewards of taxes.”
The clinic is largely redundant now, she said, as many immunizations are widely available at pharmacies, in addition to physicians.
“I don’t know how many (municipalities) in the state of Washington still have immunizations in their health clinics,” York said. “It’s not many. … As soon as the legislation changed and the pharmacies were able to provide some vaccines, it made a huge difference. It really closed the gap.”
York said the clinic tried to keep immunization costs at a price that wasn’t burdensome to residents, but the commitment to affordability meant its revenues couldn’t cover its expenses. She didn’t have cost comparisons for services provided by the clinic compared to pharmacies and doctor visits.
Lewis County Public Health is instead focusing its resources on more big-picture efforts, like a countywide health improvement plan, which works with community partners to identify priorities for the area. One of those priorities is improving communication between various agencies and providers, York said.
