District Health Department Update
Director of Clinical Services, Chelsey Lindsey, is listening as BRDHD Director, Dr. Matt Hunt, talks about district finances. Photo | PJ Martin
By PJ Martin
Editor | The Herald-News
On May 5th, the Barren River District Health Department’s Metcalfe Board met at the Metcalfe County Government Center. Those in attendance were Judge/Executive Larry Wilson, Jackie Parker, Terri Cassady, Shelia Scott, Sheila Stilts (phone), Kaytlyn Sharp, Mark Froedge, David Lafever, Matt Gallagher, Daniel Bragg, and Sandy Lile.
Judge Wilson opened the meeting, and a roll call was completed by Angela Blythe, SSAIII. Wilson introduced new board members, Sandy Lile and Daniel Bragg, after which the minutes from the last meeting were approved.
Clinical Report
The Clinical Report was presented by Director of Clinical Services, Chelsey Lindsey. District-wide, as of April 1st, 299 individuals were enrolled in the WIC program with a 96% participation rate; however, zero WIC dollars were spent in Metcalfe County due to having no participating vendor in the county. That means women needing to purchase baby formula, food, etc., using WIC must travel out of the county.
Lindsey stated, “Walgreens is working with the state to possibly become a WIC vendor for formulas…WIC is our biggest program and continues to have ongoing changes from the state and federal levels to help better serve our clients. The WIC food list was recently updated.”
WIC Farmers Market is a one-time annual benefit, and participants receive $30 to spend on fresh fruits and vegetables at the farmers’ market. The funding will only cover 17 at this time.
“From July 1 of last year to April 30 of this year, we gave 105 vaccinations, including flu and COVID-19. We did 4 family planning STD visits, and then we did 1,023 WIC nutrition visits, as well as 63 TB visits, excluding home visits,” stated Lindsey.
There was a large increase in 2025 of tick and mosquito-borne diseases such as Alpha-Gal, and as summer progresses, 2026 may see an increase as well.
Vector-borne refers to Alpha-Gal, Lyme Disease, E. Chaff, West Nile, and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever – tick and mosquito-borne illnesses. Chart provided by BRDHD
Population Health Report
The Population Health Report was presented by Macy Steele, who is the health educator for Barren, Hart, and Metcalfe County. Steele reported that the freshman class health classes included nutrition education and focused on energy drinks and caffeine intake. They were also taught STD and prevention education. There were 93 students attending classes. Students also received harm reduction education, and Narcan was provided as needed.
Steele talked about the Credible Mind website and provided 2025 district-wide user numbers of 3,357 users and 3,825 sessions. Popular topics were anxiety, depression, addiction, and recovery. “It’s a free online mental illness platform… it provides tons of different resources.” Anyone can access the site at www.barrenriverhealth.crediblemind.com.
HANDS Report
Health Access Nurturing Development Services (HANDS) Program Director, Callie Shaw, was present at Metcalfe County Baby Safety last month and did referrals. The program did 707 visits in the first quarter, with 94 ASQ developmental checks for babies, 26 depression screens with moms to screen for postpartum depression, and 5 were positive. They were provided with mental health resources.
Environmental Report
Bree Johnson reported, “As far as site evaluations, I have done 41. As far as the on-site sewage program for permits, we have done 43, existing systems we have done 17. We have put 23 dogs in quarantine. We have done six requests for service. We have 122 regular inspections done and 149 of like any kind of inspections we have done.”
Disaster Preparedness Report
Branch Manager for Disaster Preparedness and Response, Crystal Kingrey, stated that the health department has free covid and Flu tests available to families and also CO₂ detectors. They also supplied Narcan to the deputies and SROs because the dates on their Narcan were about to expire.
They also did ALICE training at the Metcalfe. Health Department. Kingrey explained, “ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate. It’s for an active shooter armed aggressor training, so they would know how to respond… It talks a lot about situational awareness, so just not at the workplace.”
“I also was able to attend the open house for your senior center… I’m looking forward to working with Debbie there and being able to take some classes to the seniors there about how they can be better prepared at home and get some education to them,” noted Kingrey.
Financial and District Reports
The last speaker was BRDHD Director Matt Hunt, who began with the district’s financial numbers. “Public health transformation dollars, if you look, compared to last year, that’s up about almost $200,000. That’s based on population in the region. That’s how we get funded.”
“Federal dollars, we’ll see pretty much close to budget, but quite significantly less than last year. Well, why is it 1.2 million less compared to last year? We don’t have COVID funding anymore. So, all that’s pretty much dried up…Medicaid is up. $539,000 versus last year $477,000.”
Hurt then stated, “We paid about $4.3, $4.4 million a year to the retirement system. And we will do that for the next 30 years. And so that number is the accrued liability that the Kentucky Public Pension Authority says, this is how much Barren River owes.”
“The 2025 Kentucky overdose fatality report numbers that just came out… there was a 22.9% reduction in overdose deaths,” said Hurt, adding, “Fentanyl was identified in 45.4% of those overdose deaths. And as a result, we’re gonna do a billboard campaign about reducing overdose deaths to fentanyl.”
Hurt also noted, “We’re going to map all the tornado shelters, public shelters, not private, but public tornado shelters in our eight counties using ArcGIS. And so, we’ll go share that with fiscal courts. We’ll go share that with emergency management,” adding that if people know where they are, they can stay safer. Also, they are learning where there may be gaps that need shelters and how they can get shelters built.
“We are joining the Kentucky Prescription Assistance Program… this might help us with our diabetes program.”
Lastly, the mobile health clinic will be at the health fair on June 5th at the Metcalfe County Farmers Market from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
With no other items to discuss, the meeting was adjourned. The next meeting is scheduled for September 8, 2026, at the Metcalfe County Government Center.
Many of the reports presented use district numbers, but when available, county information was presented in this article.
