Left to right: Board Member Richard Daniels, Regional Public Health Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Crystal Earley, Board Member Dr. Jeff Patey and resigned Health Administrator Roger Coffman remain part of discussions during the special meeting of the Washington County Health Department board Monday. (Photo by Janelle Patterson)

The Health Administrator for the Washington County Health Department resigned Monday during one of two executive sessions in a special meeting of the department’s board.

Roger Coffman, 62, of Tunnel, was appointed to the role of administrator in September of last year following a tumultuous ousting of the former department director Dr. Richard Wittberg.

“We need to work hard on finding a suitable replacement as quickly as we can,” said Board Member Dr. Jeff Patey, following the meeting. “Many of the functions of the health department I think will remain the same. We’re going to get through the COVID-related issues and the vaccination issues and we’re going to do that the best we can.”

Coffman turned in his keys and computer to the department’s fiscal director following the meeting.

This is the most recent resignation, following the departure of the registrar/account clerk Chasity Mayle, whose final day was last week before she followed former colleague Court Witschey to the Athens County Health Department.

Board Member Nat Sistrunk explained during the board meeting that four scheduled interviews were on the county department’s docket Monday to consider replacements for Mayle, but only two interviews occurred, one was a no-show, the other was quarantined due to familial exposure.

Sistrunk said he and the fiscal director conducted the interviews and confirmed qualifications for the position.

Regional Public Health Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Crystal Earley also explained to the Times Monday, while the board was in its first of two executive sessions, that preparations for vaccination of less than 25 percent of Ohio’s high-risk workers in healthcare and first responders may occur as early as mid-December.

Ohio has 723,397 high-risk workers in the health care field, she explained, and 61,372 first responders which would be eligible first to receive the first deployment of a coronavirus vaccine.

“They’ll be pre-positioned (at sites around the state) and they pick those sites because of their ultra-cooling capacity at this point,” said Earley, as she explained that for Region 8 (Washington County shares that region with Morgan, Noble, Monroe, Belmont, Jefferson, Harrison, Guernsey, Coshocton, Muskingum and Perry counties) the pre-positioning point will be at Genesis Hospital in Muskingum County.

Pre-positioning, she noted, allows for more direct deployment to county/area sites within the region for vaccination administration.

“There’s not going to be enough, because the first round (that’s eligible) is Tier 1A,” Earley explained.

In Washington County, approximately 21.27 percent of the eligible workers are expected to receive the first and second doses released of the 28-day regimen; an estimated 762 of the 3,582 eligible.

Coffman also stated, prior to his resignation, that West Virginia University’s Camden Clark Medical Center in Parkersburg is the likely regional location for staging of the vaccine in West Virginia for the local region.

“Parkersburg is the biggest city until you get to Wheeling,” he explained. “So they have the minus 70-degree celsius freezers.”

Janelle Patterson may be reached at jpatterson@mariettatimes.com.