"Police juries"

Our team has felt a shift in the mission of the group today as we are clearly making a move away from acute care medicine and post-crisis stabilization to more of a public health model and healthcare sustainability within the public health units. There is still great need in emergency shelters, but we have felt all along that the main mission of working closely with the PHUs is a chief goal and one that must remain center on the radar screen. Today, we continued discussions with public health leaders in various parishes and consciously made efforts to complement services in PHU physical space as opposed to creating new clinics in alternative locations.

While out talking to PHN leaders, we learned of 'police juries', the former name of the parish councils or our equivalent of county boards. In St. Martin's parish, our van even went to meet the parish council leader who offered some great insights into the public health needs of that parishs' residents. In Vermillion parish, our team met with a local mayor to talk about what is going on in that community. As a public health nurse myself, it is great to see the shift to public health thinking in our team which tends to lean as having more experience in acute care settings.

Tomorrow, we'll continue our work in the communities and partner with the local agencies to build their effort. We hope that we lay the groundwork so that team 3 can come in and pick up where we left off with ease.