Guinn names Clark County residents to health task force

SUN CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY -- Gov. Kenny Guinn has named three Clark County people to a task force that will decide the health priorities in spending millions of dollars from the national tobacco settlement.

They are Dr. John Ellerton, an oncologist with more than 20 years experience, who is chairman of the Clark County Anti-Tobacco Task Force; former Assemblywoman Maureen Brower, director of advocacy and communications for the American Heart Association, and Dr. Elizabeth Fildes, a consultant for the Family Medicine Faculty Development Project and certified addiction counselor.

The Task Force for a Healthy Nevada was created to determine how part of Nevada's tobacco settlement money will be allocated over the next 25 years. The state is to receive $1.2 billion or about $45 million to $48 million a year. The first installment of $14.6 million is expected to be delivered in the next 10 days.

Part of the annual allocation will go to the task force, which must reserve 30 percent to help seniors pay for prescription drugs; 30 percent to help seniors with independent living programs; 20 percent to reduce the use of tobacco; and 20 percent to improve health services to children and the disabled.

The task force must hold public hearings and set the priorities on how the money will be spent in the various categories. It will approve requests for grants from various groups and evaluate whether the programs, once funded, are working.

Forty percent of the annual receipts will be set aside for Guinn's Millennium Scholarship fund to be administered by the university Board of Regents.

The Legislature decided another $5 million a year will be used to construct housing and services for disabled people in Clark County. The University of Nevada School of Medicine will receive $1 million to provide rural counties with enhanced emergency medical services and telemedicine technology.

Another $2 million will be used to help convert Nevada's public broadcasting system to digital television with the requirement that the public stations broadcast more than 30,000 anti-tobacco announcements over 10 years.

Guinn's appointees will join six members appointed by the Senate and Assembly leadership. They are Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno; Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas; Assemblywoman Vivian Freeman, D-Las Vegas; Bill Welch of the Nevada Association of Hospitals and Health Systems; Ron Mestre of the Nevada Lung Association; and Ed Fend of the American Association of Retired Persons.

archive