State health commissioner resigns

Georgia's top public health official resigned Thursday as the state struggles to find the money to fund her agency.

As commissioner of the Department of Community Health, Dr. Rhonda Medows has overseen one of the state's largest bureaucracies for the past 4 1/2 years. She is in charge of Medicaid, public health and emergency preparedness, and she has been integral in making decisions ranging from the distribution of swine flu vaccine to the state's response to any bioterrorism attack.

Most recently, Medows has been struggling with a crisis in the state Medicaid system as that agency faces a prospective $608 million deficit. She was also put in the difficult position of defending Gov. Sonny Perdue's plan for a 1.6 percent tax on hospital revenue.

The announcement of her departure came on the same day that Perdue replaced the unpopular proposal with a proposed Medicaid rate decrease for hospitals and doctors. He also plans to eliminate a sales tax exemption for nonprofit hospitals.

Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said that was just a coincidence, and that Medows' departure had nothing to do with that decision.

Medows, herself, offered no explanation for her resignation, and she declined a request for an interview. In a memo she sent to staffers, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Medows said her decision was "hard but a correct personal decision."

She also said the department had been preparing for a few months to make sure the transition to a new leader was smooth.

Medows' last day will be March 31, after which Dr. Carla Denise Edwards, the agency's chief of staff, will serve as acting commissioner.

Perdue praised Medows as "a real trouper" during a media conference Thursday, and he hinted that her departure might be linked to the fact that he is in his final year as governor.

"Rhonda, like everyone else around here is also aware that her boss is receiving his pink slip next January," Perdue said. "We'll see some of those transitions go on through the year. I wish her well."

Medows has steered the state's community health agency through some major transitions.

Last year, the state's health agencies underwent a major restructuring, with three agencies splitting the work that had been done by two. While a new agency was created for mental health, Medows saw her agency more than triple in size as it inherited responsibility for public health and emergency preparedness.