Overview:
Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani has appointed Haitian American emergency doctor Dr. Alister Martin as commissioner of the New York Metropolis Division of Well being and Psychological Hygiene. Martin, a Harvard professor and former White Home adviser, will lead town’s public well being system and illness response efforts.
NEW YORK — Haitian American doctor Dr. Alister Martin was appointed commissioner of the New York Metropolis Division of Well being and Psychological Hygiene (DOHMH), Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani introduced on Jan.31. Martin, an emergency room doctor at Massachusetts Normal Hospital and assistant professor at Harvard Medical College, will oversee town’s public well being system, together with illness response, prevention applications and neighborhood well being initiatives.
“Dr. Martin will assist oversee town’s public well being equipment, monitor and handle illness outbreaks, and advance the Mamdani Administration’s imaginative and prescient for a metropolis the place each New Yorker can discover inexpensive, accessible, world-class healthcare,” Metropolis Corridor stated in an announcement.
The company is likely one of the larget public well being programs on the earth, with an annual funds of $1.6 billion and greater than 7,000 workers all through the 5 boroughs.
Martin stated the function carries private that means and a way of accountability to the communities that raised him.
“As a child from Jackson Heights, nothing means extra to me than coming house to serve town I used to be born in,” Martin stated within the announcement. “I’ve spent my profession constructing applications that flip healthcare settings into launchpads for alternative.”
Martin stated the appointment returns him to the immigrant roots that formed his profession in drugs and public service.
“My mom raised me as a single dad or mum in Jackson Heights. She labored her manner up from a fry cook dinner at McDonald’s to a marketing consultant on the United Nations.”
Dr. Alister Martin
“My mom raised me as a single dad or mum in Jackson Heights, a Haitian immigrant doing her degree finest,” Martin stated in an announcement. “She labored her manner up from a fry cook dinner at McDonald’s to a marketing consultant on the United Nations.”
Martin beforehand served as an adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris and labored within the White Home Workplace of Public Engagement. He’s the founding father of Vot-ER, a nonpartisan nonprofit that promotes civic participation by way of well being care settings, and leads “A More healthy Democracy,” a healthcare organizing incubator primarily based at Northeastern College.
In keeping with the mayor’s workplace, Martin’s work has targeted on connecting sufferers to providers past medical care, together with opioid dependancy therapy, vaccine entry, monetary help and civic sources. His initiatives have partnered with greater than 1,700 hospitals nationwide and skilled tens of 1000’s of clinicians.
“From the emergency room to the White Home, he has constructed applications that ship at scale,” stated Michael Collins, former White Home director of public engagement for the vice chairman’s workplace. “He’ll deliver that very same results-driven method to enhancing the well being of all New Yorkers.”
Dr. Martin was one in every of 5 new commissioners named within the mayor’s newest spherical of appointments. The others embody Stanley Richards as commissioner of the Division of Correction — the primary previously incarcerated particular person to carry the function — Yesenia Mata as commissioner of the Division of Veterans’ Providers, Sandra Escamilla-Davies as commissioner of the Division of Youth and Group Growth, and Vilda Vera Mayuga as commissioner of the Workplace of Administrative Trials and Hearings.