McHenry County Health Department Battles Fatigue, Staffing Issues

WOODSTOCK, IL — A nearly $800,000 grant that the McHenry County Department of Health will receive from state health officials should help to provide some staffing relief to avoid burnout within the department as it continues to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and getting local residents vaccinated.

The local health department is set to receive the $790,000 in grant funding as mass vaccination efforts continue across the county and as more doses of the vaccines are distributed locally. The funds are expected to help allow the department to hire eight to 10 vaccinators and other critical staff after McHenry County Health nursing division workers logged more than 1,400 hours of overtime in January alone, according to a Shaw Media report this week.

Public Health Nursing Director Susan Karras said in a McHenry County Board of Health meeting last week that the nursing department’s 12 employees logged 1,433 overtime hours over the month-long span. However, she said that because the majority of the county health employees are salaried workers, the overtime hours went unpaid, Shaw Media reported.

In the meeting, Karras old that board that she is worried about burnout within the department. Although she said she has heard no complaining among her nursing colleagues, “we are starting to see some cracks” which the department is attempting to address, she said in the meeting.

Karras did not immediately return an email to Patch on Thursday seeking specifics of how the grant money will be used among the department.

The state grant should help to alleviate of those concerns as the effort to get shots into the arms of local residents continue. Karras said in the meeting last week that the grant funding will allow the department to hire staff to work in vaccination clinics in order for the employees already in place do not have supervisory tasks added to their daily duties.

While Karras said told the Board of Health that some of the hires will work as vaccinators, many of the new employees will be hired as registered nurses or safety officers, Karras told the board.

Local health officials are also concerned with burnout among employees, especially as more doses of the vaccines become available.

"We want to make sure that our staff is not only healthy physically but mentally as well," McHenry County Board Chairman Mike Buehler told Shaw Media this week. "Working those kinds of hours on an ongoing basis itself is just a major drain. ... You can only do that for so long before you need a break.”