Health director Rebecca Johnson admits she probably wouldn’t have taken the job if she’d known what was coming.
Johnson had been working for the Southeast Kansas Multi-County Health Departments for about a year when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020.
“I probably wouldn’t have had the guts to take all this on if I’d known,” she said. “I’m proud of myself for sticking it out and I’m proud of my staff for all they had to deal with. They were fantastic.”
Johnson reflected on her experience after attending an event at the Topeka Capitol March 27 to witness Gov. Laura Kelly signing a National Public Health Week Proclamation. Johnson was invited by Cristi Cain, Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s director of public health, to represent small local health departments.
Prior to that, in February, Johnson was recognized by KDHE as an esteemed Local Health Officer and was asked to speak to other local health departments during a monthly virtual meeting. Johnson discussed her work during the pandemic and answered questions, mostly about what she has learned from that experience and in the four years since.
“I told them it’s good to have lots of friends and to know who’s who,” she said. “It’s good to have knowledge of public health law and to know how to reach out for help. One thing I’m proud of is that we kept all our staff throughout COVID. And I’m blessed to have good family and friends.”
The event in Topeka also was a good time for Johnson to meet some of the health officials she knew only from virtual meetings. They became comrades during that difficult time.
“Compared to any other job, I had never met as many people in my life. I still haven’t met everyone in person,” she said.
THE PERSONAL relationships and interactions are still things that stick out the most when Johnson reflects on the challenging time.
The hardest thing she had to do was help staff with disease investigations. That meant talking to family members and people who were seriously ill. Some of them died. Some of them were people she knew.
“Some parts of COVID were pretty traumatic. When I think about events or talk about it, it’s almost like a trigger,” she said. ”I tell myself God must have had a plan because so many events in my life led up to this.”
Again and again, people told her, “I wouldn’t do your job for all the money in the world.” Even now, she thinks that may have been part of what kept her going. No one wants to do that kind of work, but someone has to.
The most uncomfortable part of the job was telling large groups of people they had to quarantine, she said. For example, football squads or other sports teams were forced to forfeit games because of exposure to someone with COVID. They blamed her.
“But that was public health law and that’s what I’m supposed to follow. It was all in the name of trying to prevent further illness and death,” she said. “I was the bad guy for so long. I was not very well-liked at all for a long time.”
Healing those relationships and learning to “forgive and forget” has been difficult.
