I. RECOMMENDATION:
Chief Gabriel recommends authorizing the Fire Chief or the City Manager to sign MOU to be a Closed POD for the Fresno County Health Department.
II. BACKGROUND:
Since 2018, the Fresno County Public Health Department (FCPHD) has been working on establishing agreements for Points of Distribution (POD) for medications in the event of a biological attack or pandemic. This agreement would allow the Fire Department to serve as s Closed POD.
III. DISCUSSION:
The Fresno County Health Department has been working on implementing a plan for mass distribution of medication in the event of a biological attack or a pandemic. Their plan is to accomplish this through the use of Open PODs (for general public) and Closed PODs (for cities and large private companies to distribute to their employees and their families).
If one of these events were to occur requiring medication to be distributed from the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), the City of Coalinga would notify the FCPHD the number of employees and immediate family members we have, and once FCDPH receives the medication, the amount necessary to treat our employees and immediate family would be delivered to the Fire Department for us to distribute.
The timing of this MOU has nothing to do with the COVID-19 pandemic we are currently experiencing. The Closed POD concept is for distribution of oral medications only, and not injectable medication or vaccines that would be required to deal with COVID-19.
The Fire Department has participated in training to serve in this capacity.
IV. ALTERNATIVES:
- Do not participate in the program.
V. FISCAL IMPACT:
There is no direct cost to the city to participate in the program, but we would incur a small amount of overtime for personnel to attend training.
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