The COVID-19 pandemic put public well being officers within the highlight.
Now, town of Chicago has a brand new public well being commissioner filling this high-profile position after the ouster of Dr. Allison Arwady in August.
Dr. Olusimbo “Simbo” Ige is the primary Black girl to completely lead the Chicago Division of Public Well being.
Beforehand, she ran a nonprofit group in New Jersey and spent a lot of her profession as deputy commissioner of the New York Metropolis Division of Well being and Psychological Hygiene.
Ige, chosen by Mayor Brandon Johnson, has been in workplace for simply over a month.
Johnson campaigned exhausting to push for the return of extra psychological well being clinics after former mayors closed 14 of them. His price range known as for restoring two.
“That is a dedication,” Ige mentioned. “We’re agency in that dedication and we’re not going to decelerate in making an attempt to attain that goal. “Proper now, we’re working with group representatives to assist determine the place these clinics must be positioned.”
He added that the division has additionally begun hiring employees who will handle these clinics to make them a actuality.
“Our communities have had a protracted historical past of disinvestment and we all know that psychological well being goes hand-in-hand with bodily and social well being,” Ige mentioned. “That is the triangle, so we wish to be sure that after we open our clinics, we offer a clear slate of the providers our communities want.”
However a fiscal cliff looms for his division.
2024 is the final 12 months town can allocate COVID-19 reduction funds, which should be spent by 2026, including complexity to public well being funding.
“We now have emergencies, and with emergencies comes elevated funding after which when the emergencies are declared over, the funding goes away, however our public well being challenges persist,” Ige mentioned. “We’re strongly advocating for a extra versatile sort of funding that can provide us the chance to reply to all wants, not only one infectious illness at a time.”
Contact Acacia Hernandez: @acacia_rosita | [email protected]