New health officer recommended. But he says: No more than four months.

The St. Joseph County Board of Health voted last week to recommend retired Dr. Joseph H. Cerbin to a four-year term as its next health officer.

But Cerbin told The Tribune on Saturday that he’s "extremely clear” that he agreed to the role only on an interim basis and doesn’t intend to stay any longer than four months — after which he plans to move out of state.

“I’m just trying to help out until they can get a permanent director,” the local doctor said.

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Still, the county council and the county Board of Commissioners are poised to vote Tuesday on Cerbin’s appointment to a four-year term, as described in a letter from board of health President John Linn.

The council will hold a special meeting to vote on the appointment at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 21 at the County-City Building in downtown South Bend. The commissioners will then vote on it at their regular meeting, which will follow at 6 p.m. in the same fourth-floor chambers.

Questions about the process

Health board member Heidi Beidinger had cast the lone vote against the appointment, telling The Tribune she didn’t have any issue with Cerbin, but with the process.

Beidinger said she and other members of the health board came to Wednesday morning’s meeting with the idea that they were naming an interim health officer.

But, after Beidinger questioned it, Linn said Cerbin wasn’t being considered for an interim role.

It was just in the prior day that Cerbin had agreed to be considered for health officer, Linn said, after board members had spoken with a dozen different doctors. Neither Linn nor the board’s attorney, Marcel Lebbin, said anything about Cerbin’s intention to serve no more than four months. 4

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Beidinger, who didn’t know of Cerbin’s plan to move out of state at the time, pointedly asked, “Have we considered an interim health officer?”

Lebbin replied, “All things have been considered.” Later, he said, “Under the statute, we have to offer four years.”

All of this, Beidinger said, was a “bizarre” twist that threw her off guard because the health department has had two interim health officers in her eight years on the board. Other health departments across Indiana have likewise hired interim health officers in recent years.

She’d also questioned the fact that Cerbin was planning to be a part-time health officer, which would be fewer than 30 hours per week.

“The reason our health department is so well positioned is that we’ve had a full-time health officer,” she said.

Board member Ellen Reilander responded that the health officer could assign duties to other staff.

Lebbin acknowledged Beidinger’s issue on the part-time role as a “valid” concern and suggested a meeting with the board’s personnel committee in April or May to discuss it.

A matter of urgency

The county must name a health officer by the end of March, which is when the current health officer, Dr. Robert Einterz, will resign. He’d announced his resignation and the date in December.

“This county will come to a standstill as it relates to health — statutory requirements of health — if a health officer is not named and in place April 1,” Einterz emphasized to the board on Wednesday. “An individual could not get a birth certificate, a death certificate. There could be no abatement orders. Nothing can be done.”

Although the health officer could resign from the post well before the four-year term is done, Beidinger said, “That four-year contract is ironclad.”

Speaking from experience, she said, the board wouldn’t be able to take any action if Cerbin unexpectedly changed course and decided to stay, adding, “We’d have no recourse.”

Lebbin and Linn didn’t return The Tribune’s calls for comment on Saturday.

Cerbin said he’s willing to work about 20 hours per week, or more if needed, to ensure that the health department can basically function — such as, by signing necessary documents.

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He said he knows about such public-health essentials as restaurant and swimming inspections and immunizations. Beyond that, he said, he isn’t as familiar with the department’s outreach and other health promotion programs.

He frowns upon the “wildly different” political views that people take of health, be they Democrat or Republican.

“I am not a politician, and I’m not involved with politics,” he said.

Cerbin retired in December after 36 years as a family physician at South Bend Clinic. He’d also founded Granger Family Medicine. Until now, he has served as a doctor for the Navari Student Outreach Clinic, where Indiana University School of Medicine-South Bend students serve people who lack health insurance on Saturdays at a Western Avenue clinic.

South Bend Tribune reporter Joseph Dits can be reached at 574-235-6158 or jdits@sbtinfo.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: St. Joseph County seeks Dr. Joseph H. Cerbin as health officer