I’m sort of the utility infielder, the likes of which you don’t really see in major league baseball anymore, for KMIT/KOOL. There used to be guys on pro ball teams who weren’t often starters but who could come off the bench and play shortstop, second or third base at a moment’s notice. I’m mainly the co-host of the KMIT morning show with Steve Morgan but I substitute for Chris Johnson on the KOOL morning show when he’s gone and I fill in for our News Director, Bill Lurken, when Billy is off somewhere.

Bill Lurken has more sources for news than I have. Some things he has access to as our News Director that the rest of us don’t have available, nor do we need to for the functions we fulfill at the station. However, when I’m covering the news for him, I have fewer contacts or go to phone numbers etc. than Bill has. So, when I know I’m going to fill in – I go digging.

I contact City offices, the Mayor, the police etc. and line up stories that are of interest but not “breaking news”. My stories are more human interest of the local events variety than “news” per se. I investigate things that I’m curious about or that I think, based on my own experience, that the public doesn’t know much about.

As a result of that need for stories, curiosity and a desire to have a local angle I pick up on things like the Veteran’s Service Office of Davison County. It turns out those folks serve six counties, with a range of services that perhaps veterans aren’t familiar with – either out of general ignorance or because they don’t need services yet. It made for a nice human interest story, got the word out for the Veteran Services Officers and did a service for the public.

I’ve covered and cooperated with the police department to get the word out on their Citizens’ Academy, how the RSVP program is changing, Crime Stoppers etc. I’ve done stories with the Mitchell Schools about the progress of the new building, school starting and the challenge of the blistering hot weather at the beginning of the academic year etc. I’ve interviewed the Mayor on the lake and other issues. Kevin Roth, of the Street Department, gave me updates on road improvement and construction projects. The list goes on.

Recently, I decided to do a similar story on the Public Health Nurses out of Davison County, a program of the South Dakota Department of Health. I wanted to know the basics; hours of operation, how many public health nurses were on staff, did they serve counties other than Davison (like the Veterans’ Services people do) and what basic services do public health nurses provide. Are there income eligibility requirements to avail oneself of the assistance of a public health nurse? For example, do public health nurses give inoculations? If so, what kind (flu, covid, pneumonia etc.) and at what cost – if any?

I went in person to the offices in the County Building on north Main Street. I told them who I was, who I represented and what I wanted to do. The personnel there were nice, professional and tight lipped. I was offered a brochure. I told them that I wanted to do a news story and a brochure wouldn’t cut it. I would need a professional and their answers might spark follow up questions. They, very politely, informed me they were not allowed to talk to the media. All questions had to go through Pierre and “scripted” answers were to be sent back. Those answers could not be deviated from, nor would follow up questions be allowed. The person I talked to said she would put me in touch with her local supervisor.

In a day or two the local supervisor called me. I explained again what I wanted. It was to be an informative, “feel good”, basic story on the public health nurses and what they go generally. I told the supervisor that I was a former South Dakota legislator and that I had served at one time on the State Senate Health Committee as well as worked on health legislation in the legislature and didn’t want anything that encroached on or actually violated HIPAA. HIPAA is the acronym for the federal law regarding patient privacy and confidentiality. The supervisor told me the same thing the local individual had said in person. The local supervisor then said she would forward my request and questions on to Pierre.

In a subsequent phone call with the same supervisor, she told me that someone from Pierre would call me that afternoon (a Wednesday) and answer all of my basic questions that the local people knew the answer to but could not answer because of the gag rule (my words – not the local health people) that they were under from Pierre. No phone call.

I did receive an email from a Ms. Kafka from the South Dakota Department of Health offering cooperation if I indicated what I wanted to know. So, yet again, I responded – this time via email – the same thing I had told the Davison County personnel in person once and then twice over the phone. I got back yet another email from Ms. Kafka, the gist of which was – if only I would tell them what I wanted to know they would be able to (at some future date) set up something that might accommodate me. What follows is my last email to her:

Ms. Kafka,

I find your last name so appropriate because I feel I’m in a story by your distant ancestor, Franz Kafka.

I indicated to personnel in the Mitchell office face-to-face the kind of “feel good, inform the public of basic services” story I wanted to do. They said they were prohibited from answering basic questions like hours of operation, counties served, criteria for eligibility for service and a thumbnail sketch of services provided. I said I understood the HIPAA regulations and didn’t want anything that would impinge on those laws. I wanted a “Joe Friday, Dragnet” interview – just the facts Ma’am. That in person exchange – very pleasant and professional – led to my second conversation with local personnel.

The second conversation was by phone. I reiterated what I wanted to know – basics, public information “it’s in the brochure” kind of thing (and I was offered a brochure). I told her that if I just reported on what was in the brochure it was more of an advertisement or “promo” as we call it in the radio business. I needed a live professional to express the information for airing.

She communicated with the main office in Pierre, perhaps even you personally, passing along what information I was interested in. She told me someone from the department would call Wednesday afternoon for an on-air interview on the topics I had laid out (hours of operation, counties served, eligibility requirement parameters – if any, and basic services). No phone call.

On Thursday, I see an email from you asking what questions I have. I had communicated what I wanted to know twice already and the third time via surrogate Davison County public health people to you. So, I laid out for the fourth time what topics I wanted to cover in my first email response to you.

Now you ask a fifth time for the areas of interest that I have previously addressed in person, over the phone and via email. I am no longer interested in the feel good, basics story. Here are my questions for the bigger story:

1. Why are local personnel gagged and prohibited from informing the public, via local media, of the basics of their operation – hours of service, county or counties served, eligibility requirements and basic services – none of which are HIPPA violations?
2. Why do basic questions have to be submitted in writing to Big Brother in Pierre for approval and scripted response instead of allowing local personnel to respond professionally to local media requests?
3. Why are spontaneous follow up questions that may be sparked by the interviewer’s ignorance or an interesting statement by the interviewed professional to be feared?
4. Why is a taxpayer funded, public entity, housed in a building purchased by the taxpayer and open to the public so secretive, at least to local media, about the basics of the services they ostensibly are in business to provide the public with?
5. Why in a free society, with First Amendment rights, does a state agency feel free to restrict the flow of information and make difficult the obtaining of facts about the public purpose of their mission?
6. Why must the local equivalent of a Freedom of Information Act request have to be submitted every time to get basic, non-private information that in no way impinges on HIPPA regulations?
7. When was this gag policy for local employees first enacted by the department and who was the person responsible?
8. Has the department been sued or otherwise brought before the Court over their policy of arbitrarily restricting information to the public about a service the public has funded with their tax dollars?
9. Is this restrictive, ridiculous, counter-productive, poor public relations policy ever reviewed with an eye to allowing local officials to tell the media what they obviously tell any person who walks in the door for service on an individual basis?
Again, written answers do me no good. I understand, given the difficulties your department’s policy presents to First Amendment rights and the arrogance it represents in relation to taxpayer funding that you may have no wish to answer these or any other questions.

I think you’d agree, it would have been much simpler and more positive for the department had local people been able to answer the simple “ABC” questions about their basic operations or if you or someone else at the department had recognized how innocuous the initial request was and how good it would have been for your public relations and then participated in a simple straight forward “no gotchas” interview.

I sincerely hope that in the future the department will allow line personnel to answer basic questions about the service they provide for the taxpayer at their expense without jumping through all the bureaucratic hoops. It would be informative for the taxpayer, good public relations for the department and involve less suspicion and angst for all concerned.

Mel Olson

I’m still waiting for an answer to that email and the questions I posed in it. Obviously, patients and visitors to the Public Health Nurse in Davison County have an absolute right to privacy. It is also obvious that public health nurses communicate daily with members of the public that visit their facility and explain their hours, their services and the eligibility requirements to those individuals who come through their door requesting assistance or care. The very things I wanted to broadcast to a wider audience are being told to the public, albeit on an individual basis, every day. However, does saying over the radio – their hours of operation, the counties they serve, what basic services they provide and the eligibility requirements for those services have anything to do with patient privacy? The clear answer is an emphatic “no”. Why a taxpayer funded service feels that the people who pay the bills and the salaries of Big Brother in Pierre are not entitled to basic information about what their tax dollars are buying is beyond me. It is arrogant, dismissive of the taxpayer and a disservice to the public they claim to serve.