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JACKSON – For 100 years, Northampton County’s Health Department has worked to ensure that citizens have local access to healthcare by offering a variety of services. And they plan to continue that work for many more years to come.

The department held a celebration event on Tuesday, March 25 at the Northampton County Cultural and Wellness Center to mark 100 years of service. Health Director Megan Vick welcomed attendees to the event.

“I am honored to be in this room full of people to help celebrate a century of public health work in Northampton County,” Vick said. “Thank you all for being here today.”

Vick gave an overview of the history of the department, explaining that the first recorded minutes of the Northampton County Board of Health were dated January 5, 1925. Those minutes noted that the health department’s annual budget would be $4,100. The entire staff consisted of only the Health Director and one secretary, and they were responsible for carrying out public health activities including examinations of schoolchildren and teachers, prisoners at the county jail, marriage physicals, lunacy exams, tuberculosis exams, and more.

But, of course, there were physicians overseeing public health in Northampton County before the health department’s official establishment too.

Vick shared information from “A Historical Perspective of Public Health in Northampton County, North Carolina” which was written by Lamont D. Nottingham.

Before the health department was in place, the county had a Superintendent of Health. Northampton’s first superintendent was Dr. Henry Wilkins Lewis in 1887. During his time in the position, some of his accomplishments included cataloguing the kinds of diseases that affected the local population, helping design a sanitary urinal for the county courthouse, and making efforts to control and eradicate diseases.

Northampton’s first public health ordinance was enacted in 1899 to halt an epidemic of smallpox in the Creeksville area. That included quarantining infected families and mandatory vaccination for people living within a six-mile radius of infected families.

In 1911, the NC General Assembly passed the county board of health statute, which began the modern concept of the county health department. Northampton County was the fourth in the state to join the Bureau of County Health Work.

The Bureau of County Health Work was divided into six units which included the soil pollution unit, the quarantine unit, physical examinations, the unit of life extension work, prenatal and postnatal care, and the health education unit.

After the official establishment of Northampton County’s health department, they continued promoting public health through a variety of ways.

In 1937, Dr. A.L. Allen held a typhoid vaccination campaign at 20 locations throughout the county. Around 800 vaccinations were administered on the first day. Dr. Allen also distributed information on methods to prevent typhoid fever.

In that same year, the health department staff expanded to five people, and services expanded to include statistical recordkeeping of births, deaths, and communicable diseases; immunizations; maternal and infant care; environmental sanitation; home visits; health education; and more.

As full-time physicians were getting harder to employ as Health Directors over the years, the county Board of Health voted in 1968 to employ a trained public health administrator and then a physician to serve as a consultant. Reese Bullock was appointed as acting Health Director and Dr. John Stanley was chosen as the physician consultant.

Dr. Stanley served in the role as Medical Director for 46 years until 2015. After he stepped aside, Dr. Frank Taylor took on the role, a position in which he still serves today.

During her remarks, Vick also acknowledged the COVID-19 pandemic, and the health department’s response to the unexpected event.

“On March 22, 2020, the Northampton County Health Department under the leadership of then Health Director Andy Smith, released its first press release announcing its first case of COVID-19 in a long-term care facility,” Vick recalled.

In the earliest days of the pandemic, Vick noted, there was no guidance from the state, no confirmed ways of transmission, no vaccination, and no known treatment. Smith and Dr. Taylor worked quickly to test people at the facility and give quarantine guidance to stop the spread.

The department shut down its nonessential clinics, but continued essential services along with their covid response. As the pandemic continued, Smith and Dr. Taylor organized outdoor drive-thru testing clinics at the health department in Jackson and at other towns throughout the county.

When the first vaccine was released in December 2020, the health department staff coordinated vaccine distribution to make sure everything ran smoothly and people were able to receive their doses. Vaccination clinics were also held in different areas of the county.

“In these unprecedented times, the leadership we received from Andy Smith and Dr. Taylor never wavered,” Vick stated.

She then presented both of them with an award for outstanding leadership service.

Following the recognition awards, Vick then gave an overview of the Northampton County Health Department as it currently operates with its 31 employees.

Under the past three years of Vick’s tenure as Director, the department has started offering primary care, has achieved Advanced Medical Home Tier III status, has added a breastfeeding room easily accessible from the lobby for patients, and has received Accreditation with Honors by meeting all 41 benchmarks and 147 activities with a perfect score.

Northampton’s Health Department current services include family planning, WIC, general clinic (including immunizations), child health, communicable disease, health education, home health, emergency preparedness and response, case management for at-risk children and high-risk pregnancies, primary care, jail health, and environmental health.

Vick then recognized the current staff members with a certificate of appreciation.

“I look forward to the future and expanding the services of the Northampton County Health Department to help better serve the citizens of Northampton County,” she concluded.