A little boy was dead from encephalitis, two others had gotten sick, and a fourth had meningitis. There was no apparent connection, but such was the public concern that Warwick, West Warwick, Coventry and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence had kept more than 20,000 children home from school for two days.
Knowing that the schools, municipalities and the R.I. Department of Health were getting flooded with phone calls – and doctors as well – Warwick-based Unitedhealthcare Of New England Inc. offered to help.
“We thought about doing a seminar, but we were told that wasn’t a good idea, because they wanted to have a consistent message,” said United spokeswoman Debora M. Spano. “So we thought a phone line, because the doctors were getting inundated. But we didn’t have a system in place to do that.”
United did make a $5,000 donation to help offset the cost of some supplies needed to respond to the crisis, Spano said. But CEO Stephen J. Farrell is also meeting March 26 with health officials to try to set up a system to make it easier to help in the future.
Meanwhile, Dr. David R. Gifford, the state health director, has alerted the R.I. Emergency Management Advisory Council to the situation, and Lt. Gov. Elizabeth H. Roberts, who heads the council, has made it a priority to develop a system to accept money and in-kind contributions from the private sector during emergencies.
“I see the EMAC as a place where we can solve problems,” Roberts said, and the mycoplasma bacteria scare showed “we can do better in integrating private-sector resources into our emergency management system.”
The state has done that successfully before, Roberts said, particularly after the tragedy at The Station, when the United Way of Rhode Island administered donations. But that was an isolated case, she noted: In general, the state government isn’t set up to accept donations – there’s no account in the budget, for starters, or a system to solicit or administer donations.
The state may choose to delegate that function as it did with the fire, Roberts said, but either way, “we need to have a system in place, so we don’t have to reinvent it every time.”
Roberts said within about a month, a group of EMAC members will be set up to work with business leaders to design the system, differentiating between cash donations and goods and volunteer services.
“We have made great strides in coordinating state and local organizations,” she said, and this next step shouldn’t be a big challenge. “I see this as a very defined project,” she said. “If you get people around the table, I expect you can move things very quickly.”
Seifert Systems Invests in Energy Efficiency to Strengthen Operations
For manufacturers, energy is more than just another operating expense. It plays a critical role…
Learn More
