The Bell County Public Health District has been on the hunt for a new director over the last six months. Now they found their leading lady.
“When this opportunity came up I felt like I was just being called here to help do something. I don’t know exactly what, but that’s all a part of the journey and adventure,” said Bell County Public Health District Director Amy Yeager.
Meet Amy Yeager. The new woman in charge.
“This will be the assessment phase for me for a while, so I can really see what’s going on. What do we have? What’s the history? What are the priorities needs,” said Yeager.
While she’s new to Texas, she’s been in public health for 26 years in St. Louis, Missouri.
“I was the community health Director so I did a lot of shared responsibilities for different duties for the department. We only had 36 employees and 265,000 Residents. I’ve always wanted to move into a full director position,” said Yeager.
She’s also ready to help in Bell County’s fight against COVID. This week the district lowered its COVID threat level from a level 1 to a level 2 significant community transmission. One month after raising the threat level.
“As those trend lines go down, once they dipped below a certain threshold then you can change the threat level. That’s why the decision was made to change the threat level. It was actually a significant drop,” said Yeager.
We’re not out of the woods yet.
“They had 43 COVID admissions in the last 24 hours. They only have three adults and two pediatric ICU beds open. The hospitals are still taking it pretty hard,” said Texas A&M University-Central Department of Nursing Director & Chair Amy Mersiovsky.
That’s why Yeager is making plans, building relationships, and working to implement more ways to combat COVID-19.
“I really wanna build a team and not just a team here at the department but a team of the whole county. The district as a lead for Public Health pieces,” said Yeager.
Yeager said she’s not ready to come forward with her plans yet, once she fully assesses the county … she’ll get the ball rolling.
