Recent News

Dr. Leana S. Wen: Fast Tracking Baltimore's Fight Against AIDS (Center Maryland)

This week, Baltimore celebrates World AIDS Day, honoring the memories of those lost to HIV/AIDS and recommitting to the fight to eliminate this tragic disease. 

For decades, Baltimore City has been on the frontlines of the nation’s HIV/AIDS epidemic. In our City, there are an estimated 13,000 residents diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.

For us, HIV/AIDS is not just a health issue—it is one of justice and equity. It also requires innovative, community-driven approaches to save lives.

More than two decades ago, Baltimore became the first jurisdiction in Maryland—and one of the first in the country—to operate a syringe exchange program as a strategy to prevent HIV and other infections among injection drug users. This strategy has proven remarkably effective, as the percentage of people with HIV from intravenous drug use has plummeted from 63 percent in 1994 to 7 percent in 2014

Safe Streets Using Street Smarts Of Former Felons To Curb Gun Violence (WYPR)

Today, a conversation about Safe Streets, a program that uses the street wisdom of former felons and reformed gang members to fight the epidemic of gun violence in some of Baltimore’s most dangerous neighborhoods. The concept was inspired by a similar program in Chicago called Ceasefire. Community outreach workers known as "violence interrupters" patrol neighborhoods, interacting with residents and stepping in to mediate tense conflicts before they escalate to violence. Many of the violence interrupters have criminal records and gang ties, and all of them have credible reputations on the streets, an aspect that proves important when stepping into potentially violent situations. 

Advocates of Safe Streets say the program has dramatically reduced violent crime in the four community sites it’s operating in, McElderry Park, Cherry Hill, Mondawmin, and Park Heights. In 2015, Safe Streets outreach workers mediated nearly 700 conflicts, 80 percent of which were deemed “likely” or “very likely” to have resulted in gun violence.

Baltimore City Health Commissioner Issues Statement Following Selection of Congressman Tom Price as Nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services

BALTIMORE, MD (November 29, 2016) – Today, Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen issued the following statement in response to the selection of Congressman Tom Price as President-elect Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services:

The 'uncertain path ahead'

Recently, I treated a patient in clinic, a woman in her early 40s. Just two years prior, she was experiencing homelessness and frequented emergency rooms every few weeks. Through the Affordable Care Act, she was able to get health insurance, which in turn helped her get her blood pressure managed and diabetes treated. It also enabled her to obtain treatment for depression and alcoholism.

As a result, she now had a job and a home. She regained custody of her children. Thanks to health insurance, which she called "her rock," she had her life back.

But when I saw her, she was distraught. Crying on the examining table, she told me how worried she was that her insurance could now be in jeopardy — that she could lose everything she worked so hard to achieve.

For my patient, like so many of our residents, the national uncertainty we face is deeply personal. In 2010, 81,000 adults in Baltimore City were without health insurance. That number has been cut in half — meaning that more than 40,000 now have access to life-saving care. Will their coverage now be at risk? Will our neighbors and family members be priced out of the basic right to health?

Frontline Health Leaders Urge Presidential Transition Team to Invest in Public Health

TO:  Governor and Vice President-elect Mike Pence  
RE:   Frontline Health Leaders Urge Presidential Transition Team to Invest in Public Health

Why glasses can create a vision for Baltimore

Imagine if you are an eight-year old who needs glasses but doesn’t know it. You squint to read the board. Sometimes, if you’re sitting too far back, you can’t see the board at all. Tasks that seem simple to other students, like reading a short story or understanding a map, are frustrating and almost impossible.

According to estimates from the Baltimore City Health Department and Johns Hopkins University, as many as 10,000 elementary and middle school students in Baltimore City lack the glasses they need. Not only do students with vision problems have difficulty focusing and fall behind their peers academically, but also have a greater tendency for hyperactivity, distractibility, and misbehavior.

It is common sense that if children cannot see, they cannot learn. They can go through years of struggle, even being set back in school or labeled as being “troubled”, before they are treated with something as simple as a pair of glasses.

On The Front Lines Of The Overdose Epidemic In Baltimore

As a wave of heroin overdoses strikes West Baltimore, a medical team warns a stricken neighborhood and hands out last-ditch doses of lifesaving medication.
 

WEST BALTIMORE — At the sidewalk’s edge in a vacant lot, the crowd gathered around the card table, to learn how to bring someone back from the dead.

On the table rested a vial of naloxone — the drug that reverses overdoses from heroin and other opioid drugs — screwed into a nostril-shaped inhaler. Daryl Mack of the Baltimore City Health Department had assembled the kit in about 30 seconds in front of the crowd.

The watchers, older black men and women from Baltimore’s Sandtown neighborhood, nodded at Mack’s description of a black person turning ashy gray during an overdose as their breathing stops, and how the drug on the table will call them back from the edge of death.

Read the entire story.

BCHD Celebrates Waxter Senior Center Fitness Center Grand Opening!

BCHD Waxter Senior Center Fitness Center Grand Opening

On Thursday, Dr. Wen and BCHD staff joined Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, City Council President Jack Young, Aaron Merki from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, and Kathy Brill from the Leonard & Helen R. Stulman Charitable Foundation to celebrate the grand opening of the Waxter Senior Center Fitness Center.

This 3,000 square foot fitness center will provide Waxter center members and the surrounding community with new fitness equipment and a space for therapeutic services such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, and other health related activities.

Baltimore City Health Commissioner Issues Statement in Response to Landmark Surgeon General Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health

BALTIMORE, MD (November 18, 2016)Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen today issued the following statement in response to a new report by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy that identifies substance use disorders as one of America’s most pressing public health concerns.

Healthwatch With Dr. Leana Wen: Record-Low Infant Mortality; Youth Health Strategy; Obamacare (WYPR)

It’s the Midday Healthwatch with Dr. Leana Wen, the Health Commissioner of Baltimore City.  There’s good news for babies in Baltimore: the infant mortality rate fell to record low levels in 2015.  And there is an effort afoot to help those healthy babies grow into healthy teenagers.  We’ll look at the ways the city is implementing its new Youth Health and Wellness Strategy.  Plus, the future of Obamacare:  If President Elect Trump makes good on his promise to repeal and replace the ACA, what will that mean for local health departments struggling to address the needs of the uninsured, and the under-insured?  Even though rates for some plans are rising, is the ACA still a good deal for some people?

Listen to the segment here: http://wypr.org/post/healthwatch-dr-leana-wen-record-low-infant-mortality-youth-health-strategy-obamacare

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