The Mississippi State Health Department has been less than enthusiastic about some of the responsibilities it has been recently handed by the Legislature.
The Health Department didn’t want to take on regulating medical marijuana, and it’s been criticized for taking too long to license cultivators and processors and issue medical cards to qualifying patients.
More recently, it indicated it does not want to settle the battle between two Jackson hospitals over which one gets to be designated as the state’s next burn center, even though that was the Legislature’s intent when it punted the job to the Health Department.
What gives?
In the case of medical marijuana, the answer is most likely that the responsibility involves more work than the Health Department has had people to handle.
Dr. Dan Edney, the state health officer under whose management the Health Department falls, told the Greenwood Voters League this past week that his agency has been crippled by a lack of funding. He said that during the most recent legislative session, he begged unsuccessfully for 100 more nurses to deal with the lingering issues from COVID-19, a recent surge in syphilis cases that has put newborns at mortal risk, and the rural hospital crisis that has reduced access to health-care services in places such as the Delta.
As a result of these and other priorities, the Health Department has been slow to ramp up its staffing to deal with medical marijuana. At one point the office that oversees the program had only four employees. Applications from patients that were supposed to take 30 days to process were taking at times twice as long.
Recently, the Legislature tightened the turnaround time, mandating that applications be completed within 10 days. The Health Department has added staff and hired contractors to try to comply, but Edney has publicly acknowledged that the 10-day requirement is unrealistic for now.
As far as the burn center, that’s not a staffing issue but a political one.
After Mississippi’s only burn center closed in October, two hospitals said they were ready to fill the void — Mississippi Baptist Medical Center and the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Both wanted the $4 million the Legislature was willing to put into the next burn center, and both had friends in the Legislature pushing for their side.
Lawmakers arrived at a wise compromise, agreeing to put up the money but delegating to the Health Department the responsibility of deciding which hospital was best suited to carry out the mission for the long term.
Or at least that’s what those who worked out the compromise thought they had done.
The Health Department, however, doesn’t read the legislation the same way as those who had written it.
Earlier this month, the department determined that UMMC has the qualifications to specialize in treating patients who suffer severe, disfiguring burns. An application from Baptist for similar certification is still pending.
A spokeswoman for the Health Department said don’t expect it to decide which application is more deserving.
“The law doesn’t say we pick, instead, we review the application, complete an inspection and the (state health officer) then designates the facility as a burn center consistent with trauma rules and regulations,” Liz Sharlot responded to Mississippi Today in an email.
This sounds like a hot potato that no one wants, but one the Health Department needs to keep, even if that requires clarifying the law as to who is going to do what.
Lawmakers don’t have the expertise to decide which hospital has the best doctors, the best training and the best facilities to deal with traumatic burn injuries. If this decision is tossed back to them, more than likely the outcome will be based on which hospital has the best political connections.
That would serve neither the patients nor the taxpayers.
- Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
