POINT PLEASANT — The Mason County Health Department has always been involved in working to protect the health of the community.

In recent months, health department staff have diligently worked to combat the H1N1 influenza scare by setting up vaccine clinics and educating the public on the disease. According to Diana Riddle, administrator and nursing director, the health department is able to accomplish what it does by having the staff work as a team.

Rosa Lee Beattie, RN, BSN, public health nurse II, has worked at the health departments for 20 years, and agreed that the staff’s team effort as well as cooperation with the community has enabled the health department to be more productive.

“We do work as a team. We have Diana as our leader and she is very productive and keeps us on task — she does an excellent job, and she puts hours and hours above the eight hour work day,” Beattie said. “We’re a little family here and we take care of each other personally — it is a team effort and we are closely knit.”

According to Riddle, the health department has been its current location on Sixth St. for 10 years and was previously located in various locations of the Mason County Courthouse.

“We have 66 years of public health experience between all of the current employees,” Riddle said.

Jennifer Thomas, RN, public health nurse II, also praised the health department’s volunteers for contributing to the team effort. According to Thomas, the volunteers have been beneficial in helping with the seasonal and H1N1 flu clinics as well as doing other tasks, such as mailing newsletters.

“We couldn’t do it without our volunteers,” Riddle said, adding that the health department currently is in need of more volunteers.

Riddle described hosting flu clinics as taking a lot of work, but said that the staff is able to set up clinics in 20 minutes due to teamwork and organization. While the majority of the staff is working at clinics, Riddle said that office assistants, Toni Holstein and Beth Lewis, work hard to keep the health department up and running by dealing with patients’ concerns. According to both Holstein and Lewis, the majority of their calls deal with questions regarding H1N1.

“Beth and I have to be courteous and patient — we make it personal,” Holstein said.

Riddle added that the health department is a constant 24 hour service to the community.

“Not all of our calls are just on H1N1 flu. Even before that, we got so many phone calls about people needing stuff because of the unemployment hike and job losses,” she said. “Even if we can’t directly help them we refer them to some place that can. I think this is because we are smaller and local — you wouldn’t get this in a bigger county.”

Services that the health department provides includes fluoride testing, immunizations, breast and cervical cancer screenings, prostate exams, family planning and TB testing. In addition, the health department works with area doctors to keep track on flu-like cases as well as follows up on communicable diseases. Also, Mike Waugh, sanitarian, performs inspections at restaurants and teaches food handlers classes as well as deals with environmental health aspects.

Riddle described the most interesting part of working at the health department as educational prevention aspect. She said that the staff has worked well with the schools as well as members of the faith community regarding various issues, such as the H1N1 flu. Beattie agreed that the educational aspect was interesting, but also attributed the health departments diversity of programs as being exciting.

As for Lewis, she described working with professionals as her favorite part of the job, while Holstein said that she enjoyed seeing satisfied and appreciative patients.

“We go above and beyond as far as giving people resources,” Holstein added.

Overall, the health department staff credited the citizens and community leaders of Mason County as enabling them to work toward preventive health care for all residents.

Dr. Curtis Pack health officer also works full-time for the health department. Part-time staff include Barbara McDaniel, clerk; Sherri Nutter, RN and Anna Lou Sturgeon, RN. H1N1 staff include Samantha Hoffman, RN; Kathy Ingles, RN; Jane Hannum, RN; Nancy Ohlinger, RN; Rhonda Vaughan, LPN; Samantha Cheesebrew, clerk; and Chastity Young, clerk.

(If you know someone who could be a potential candidate for an upcoming “Day in the Life” feature, e-mail his or her name and contact information to mdrnews@mydailyregister.com or call 304-675-1333.)