Rambo Looking at Hiring Options

Flu season has barely ended, and the Rambo Health Center is already looking at plans for the next one.

Executive Director, Crystal Bebout, said Rambo can operate with a small staff for most of the year. But that changes when flu season comes around. During a meeting with the Muskingum County Commissioners Wednesday, Rambo officials discussed the best way to go about hiring extra nurses during the busy flu season.

“They want us to do a cost comparison to see all three different ways to see which would be more cost effective, and also, we need to look at liability issues and things like that as well, so we’ll take a look at all those things and bring it back to the commissioners when we have that information ready,” Bebout said.

Rambo is now considering three options, which include hiring temporary, contract or salaried employees. Bebout explained why they are revisiting their hiring options.

“We had an issue with some sort of law that came out a few years ago where an agency, I believe was in Franklin County, was fined because they were hiring contract staff over salaried employees,” Bebout said. “And when that information came to us, we changed the way we were doing things. We no longer have contract staff, we put them as salaried employees.”

Come flu season, no matter how they’re hired, Bebout said those employees will be there to help distribute thousands of flu shots.