City Health Department

The Baltimore city and county health departments are offering free or reduced-price flu vaccinations to senior citizens and others at high risk for the disease. They are stepping in to alleviate shortages caused by manufacturing delays, shortages that have left many doctors with little or no vaccine to offer their patients. "We want to stop getting out the message that there's a delay, and start getting out the message that we have the vaccine," Dr. Peter Beilenson, the city health commissioner, said yesterday.

In Baltimore County State officials plan meeting Thursday on transportation plans TOWSON - State Department of Transportation officials plan to meet Thursday with local officials and residents to discuss transportation projects in Baltimore County. The meeting will be held at 10:30 a.m. in the County Council Chambers on the second floor of the Old Courthouse, 400 Washington Ave. Benefit pancake breakfast set Sunday at fire company KINGSVILLE - A pancake breakfast to benefit Kingsville Volunteer Fire Company will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Sunday at the fire station on Bellvue Avenue.

It's Friday morning, and Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, Baltimore's health commissioner, is sitting at the head of a conference table, flipping through pages of statistics. Nervous directors of city drug treatment programs sit around the table and wait for the interrogation. Today's first target is Total Health Care Inc., an outpatient program near Charles Street and North Avenue. Beilenson wants to know why the program's retention rate -- how long people stay in treatment -- has dropped. Six months ago, 94 percent of the people were still there after the first month of treatment, now 83 percent are. "What's going on?"

The city's three main waterways are heavily contaminated with sewage bacteria at levels routinely more than 10 times what is considered safe for public health, and sometimes 100 times the safe level. Environmental experts agree that chronic leaks and undetected breaks in the city's aging, deteriorated sewer lines are probably responsible for most of the contamination in Herring Run, Gwynns Falls and Jones Falls. A top Environmental Protection Agency official said the situation apparently violates the federal Clean Water Act, the nation's premier water pollution law, which leaves polluters vulnerable to fines of up to $27,500 each day the pollution persists.

In Maryland Seniors, children, infirm encouraged to get flu vaccine State health officials are encouraging senior citizens, children and people with serious health problems to get flu vaccinations as soon as possible. Three cases of the type B flu strain have been reported in metropolitan Baltimore, according to the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. This year's vaccine is effective against several flu strains. The vaccines are 70 percent to 90 percent effective in healthy adults.

Baltimore's Hispanic residents are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the city, but language and cultural barriers have left them with woefully inadequate access to health services, according to a report to be released today by the city Health Department. Frustrated Hispanic patients have stormed out of doctors' offices or been forced to bring their children to translate sensitive medical information, said Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, city health commissioner. Some medical centers have only one Spanish speaker to serve hundreds of patients.

About 220 Baltimore drug treatment slots threatened by cuts in city spending will be preserved at least through July using $250,000 from the city health department, Health Commissioner Dr. Peter L. Beilenson said yesterday. And Mayor Martin O'Malley said he is working to find another $1 million to keep the slots open for the entire fiscal year, though that may require trimming a number of other city programs. "We're still scrambling around for a way to make this work," O'Malley said. The mayor, who has fought for greater state funding for treatment, said he does not want "to give up the high ground" by reducing the city's contribution.

As state investigators widened their criminal probe into possible environmental violations by a city warehouse owner, health officials met yesterday with residents worried about exposure to unidentified chemicals at a South Baltimore site. The Maryland Department of the Environment on Thursday issued its second site complaint this week to Edward Louis Birtic, a Finksburg man who owns two city warehouses, officials confirmed yesterday. Birtic was ordered to identify and dispose of more than a dozen 55-gallon drums that state investigators found filled with unidentified chemicals and stored illegally at a Southwest Baltimore warehouse, officials said.

Since the day the clinic quietly opened a month ago, men have been coming, nursing aching teeth and bad shoulders, worrying about HIV and high blood pressure. Some haven't seen a doctor in years. Others are so sick they have to be taken away in an ambulance. When the Baltimore City Health Department renovated part of its Druid Health Center on North Avenue, doctors expected it would take a while for patients to hear about the new Men's Health Center. Instead, dozens and dozens of men have been showing up. The only one of its kind in the nation, the free clinic serves uninsured men ages 19 to 64, providing primary and dental care, substance abuse counseling, and even links to jobs.