On Wednesday morning, over 120 residents and representatives from community-based organizations, foundations, businesses, nonprofits, and service providers assembled to discuss trauma and mental health in Baltimore City. We convened the first in a series of meetings to better understand how the community defines and experiences trauma in order for the department to build better policies and programs that emphasize and lift up the work already happening in the community. As a result, we will build a citywide plan to address trauma in our communities.

The start of the 115th Congress has focused on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Legislators speak about repealing a policy, about political strategies. 

For me, as a doctor, as Baltimore City’s doctor, it’s about my patients and their lives.

Eight years ago, before the ACA, I treated a 36-year old man, a father of two toddlers. He stopped taking his seizure medications because insurance companies wouldn’t cover him. He had a choice: pay thousands of dollars a month, out of pocket, or ensure that his family had rent and food. As many others would have done, he chose his family, and let his medications lapse.

By the time he was brought to the ER, he had suffered a grand mal seizure. He was unconscious and continually seizing. We gave him medications. We put a breathing tube in. We did everything we could, but he never came out of the coma, and he died.

I think about him and his family when I hear discussions of the ACA. I think about the 40,000 people in my city who would be uninsured if not for the ACA. My patients tell me that they’re scared.

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Online grocery shopping brings convenience. But if it’s available to everyone, it’s also seen as one way to help people in food deserts get access to fresh food.

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Maryland’s inclusion earned praise from Baltimore City Health Commissioner Leana Wen.

“Unfortunately, 1 in 4 Baltimore City residents live in an area identified as a food desert,” she said. “This pilot will break down barriers and bring groceries to people, saving them time and money.”

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BALTIMORE, MD (January 6, 2017) — With temperatures predicted to fall into the teens with wind chill this weekend, Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen today issued a Code Blue declaration for Baltimore City beginning Friday evening, January 6th through the morning of Monday, January 9th.