Food programs in poor neighborhoods. People to follow the overvoltages of Covid, measles or other diseases. Programs to help people with dependence.
The Washington budget cups has hundreds of state hundreds and local health officials who fight to assess the impact on their communities and their departments.
“I have food programs in some of the poorest postal codes that I cannot give food to children today. I have leisure centers that will not be able to make a certain community awareness, “said Matifadza Hlatatshwayo Davis, who heads the Department of Public Health in Saint-Louis.
Davis was already in shock from the news on Monday that $ 11 billion had been shealed from COVVI-19 programs Paid by disease control centers and prevention subsidies. Then Thursday, the secretary of health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced a huge restructuring of the Ministry of Health and Social Services, intended to be completed in a few months. Many affected agencies share data, resources and expertise with local health services.
“It’s chaotic,” said Davis. “If you think about efficiency, it causes ineffectiveness.”
Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association, also withered about HHS changes.
“This reorganization that the secretary has made is absurd,” he told Stat. “It seems that someone took a bunch of organizations, put them in a pot, shaken them, then, like dice, deployed them on the table, then moved them according to what his whim was at the moment.”
Davis stressed that “public health was already on fire” at the national level, because the field had lost 150,000 public health agents at the end of 2021. “Covid was difficult,” she said.
The subsidies of the CDC which were canceled on Monday had helped Saint-Louis to face the worst of the pandemic, and, like Cavid, moved to Endemic, St. Louis and other cities and states were able to draw funds under the cocovated coverage and apply them to other needs. This is no longer the case, said Davis.
“We were able to identify the social and structural determinants of health and build programs in communities with an approach based on data that is not as complex as, Oh, Covid is gone,” she said.
Public health services at the local level and the State generally depend on federal subsidies to compensate about half of their budgets. The large declines of silver on which the departments counted on Will will aggravate the state of health in America, predicted Richard Besser, president and chief executive officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the CDC.
“These are not infectious diseases that shorten lives and harm the quality of people’s life in America today. It is a chronic disease, and we have a secretary who talks about wanting to approach chronic diseases in a significant way,” he told Stat. “But how do you do this the day before this announcement, do you suddenly finish with subsidies to the health and local health services that meet mental health needs and toxicomomania and overdose prevention? How do you do this when you talk about CDC simply on infectious diseases when armed violence is the main cause of death in America?”
At least one health service, Tennessee, expressed confidence in the actions of the Trump administration in a statement sent to Stat: “The Ministry of Health received the CDC opinion concerning the reductions in the financing of the Pandemic era. While the federal government continues to reduce waste and improve efficiency, we are convinced that these changes will not have an impact on our ability to serve Tennesseens. ”
A scientist who asked for anonymity, fearing the remuneration for carrying out now defined coastal research, was less optimistic about the cuts of public health and research.
“This is the bull in a store in China,” said the researcher. “It will take decades to cancel the damage caused.”
Benjamin said the loss of money is already harmed the national state and local health services, said Benjamin. The same detectives that follow Covid also follow polio and measles. “”This money goes in many places that must let people go right away, “he said.” State and local governments have their budget in place and they are unable to paddle money to fill these jobs. “”
Losing highly qualified people, including many holders of public health or MDS in infectious diseases, can ultimately save money, said Davis about not being able to keep those she calls the most underestimated people in society.
“If we close the websites and eliminate data without warning, how do our epidemiologists and data analysts have a data-based approach for surveillance, for cases in cases? How can we let the public know responsible for what is going on? ” She asked. “If there is an epidemic in Saint-Louis, I am used to being able to continue in real time with the CDC and the State, and if there are a lot of chaos around someone who loses his job, someone in the process of reintegration, some of these communication avenues become immediately difficult to resolve in real time.”
Benjamin said that the response hampered in the measles epidemic in Texas has shown pressure on public health. The cuts will worsen things, he said. “If a child from your school presents himself with darling, darling, measles, infectious diseases, you will have no one to go out to understand who has been exposed. They will not have the capacity to get you your luck.”
For the same reasons, he predicts that the reduction in public health work will result in more transmissible sexually infections, including HIV.
As for the cup of nearly a billion dollars of mental health, it says that it will be felt in overcrowded hospitals.
“People with a serious and persistent mental illness will present themselves to the hospital emergency services,” said Benjamin. “So when you enter your heart attack, it will not have a bed for you.”
Covid scientist had been excited by the vision behind Make American Healthy again at the start. But more.
“It is very clear that they say one thing, but action on the ground is different,” said the researcher. “It will not really make America healthy.”
Benjamin hopes that the administration listens to what public health leaders say.
“I think our role is now to show them the impact and show them that it is not theoretical, that what they have done today has an impact on people tomorrow,” he said. “You are always concerned about excessive reaction. And, you know, I do not react excessively.”
Helen Branswell and Eric Boodman contributed the reports.
Coverage of chronic health problems by stat is supported by a subsidy of Bloomberg philanthropies. OUR financial supporters are not involved in any decision concerning our journalism.
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