Judith Shaplin, CEO, Mountain Health & Community Centers
Nominated by: Carol Lewis, Dental Coordinator/Outreach, Mountain Health & Community Services and Dana Goodrich Deane, DC

Judith Shaplin has worked very hard this last year to expand our facilities to reach more families in San Diego County. We added two new clinics to our family, one in the city of San Diego city one in Escondido. This has added a lot of new challenges which Judith has handled amazingly well. She continues to maintain excellence in patient care in each of our clinics, although staffing our most remote sites has always proven to be difficult. We are privileged to have added some wonderful staff to our behavioral medicine as well as to our clinics this last year. Mountain Health continues to reach families with our tele-medicine program, which has proven very successful for our more remote sites.

The October 2007 wildfires wreaked havoc in San Diego County. Beginning in 2003 after the Cedar Fire, Ms. Shaplin has worked tirelessly to develop a Disaster Preparedness program with Mountain Health & Community Services. She has worked with the Back Country Revitalization Committee, the Mountain Empire Collaborative, the Wellness Council and the Council of Community Clinics to prepare for San Diego's next disaster.

The community center we operate in rural Campo became the Red Cross evacuation center for families in several of our rural communities during the Harris Fire. Potrero was one of the first communities affected by the fire, along with Barrett Junction, Tecate (on the Mexican border), Dulzura and Jamul. Many of these homes are trailers, mobile homes and manufactured housing owned or rented by low income families. Most of these families are uninsured. Five people were killed in this fire and four firefighters continue to cling to life from burns sustained during this fire. Judith came back from sick leave and worked 12 to 16 hour days running the command post located at our community center.

The work that Ms. Shaplin has done to prepare our community was very successful.  The Red Cross was surprised and wasn't sure what they were supposed to do.  Mountain Health & Community Services provided health services, counseling for fire evacuees, daycare for the children with lots of fun activities, meals for both the evacuees and for the firefighters, border patrol, sheriffs, and volunteers four times each day.  We immediately set up a distribution center for supplies and clothing, assistance with services and a place to sleep for over 175 evacuees throughout the week.  Judith knew that San Diego would face another disaster and she was ready.  Our families were happy that she was.

Geographically, San Diego is interesting. San Diego is often only recognized as a coastal metropolitan area. But, San Diego county extends into the mountains and beyond into remote valleys. These are the rural areas serviced by Mountain Health & Community Services. Along with preparing for the yearly fires in our backcountry, we are prepared for most any disaster, including the pandemic flu.

Judith is always proactive in preparation and has stood out from the rest with all of the planning that she has done. We have storage containers filled with supplies for all of these disasters. She is also beginning a food bank to service these communities because we have a hard time getting SHARE or Golden Harvest out to the residents in need. Transportation is also a problem and Judith has drivers who will pick patients up and bring them in for health care. Our rural community center has a senior nutrition program with low-cost or no-cost meals both at the community center and home-delivered for seniors, although it often feeds non-senior residents as well. 

Article posted on 1/17/08