And I have some questions specifically about, describe some of the issues that arise when attempting to keep people in hospital, and are they provided with the correct medications to relieve the withdrawal pains, and are sufficient therapies for drugs that specifically affect Black communities? Sterling mentioned some stuff earlier. He's gone, so I'm kind of asking you to dive a little deeper into that.
So we just started a process in Camden that I'm really a big fan of. We paired up with the Cooper Center for healing out of Cooper Hospital, and one of the biggest fears that we found for folks who really do need higher level care is that they're going to go into 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. withdrawal because their symptoms are being poorly managed in the hospital while they're in there. So we worked and we got an agreement that we have a team that meets them in the ER now. If we have patients who are currently on the street, who need to come inside because they have an infection that's so bad it requires higher level interaction, we now I can text the folks in the emergency room and say, I'm bringing someone in, and they will meet them at the door to make sure that they are having their withdrawal symptoms handled appropriately, with an appropriate level of methadone, appropriate level of Dilaudid, and other medications required to keep them from going into withdrawal. But what we're really focusing on right now is just as you were saying, everything needs to be mobile, everything needs to be outside. You're right, we can't do this from an office. So we are trying to manage more and more chronic illnesses, more and more issues from the mobile van. We prescribe Suboxone from the mobile van. 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. We have the NJCRI mobile van that's prescribing, treating, telehealth for hepatitis C treatment, for HIV treatment. We are mailing the medications to my office, and I will find people wherever they are and get the medications to them directly. Hold on to them if they need me to, because they don't trust that the medication is safe with them where they are. But I think it's time for all of us to think outside the box. But I also think that what you said is so true, which is that the most important thing is that we have to recognize that the folks we're treating are important and valuable wherever they are, and they deserve access to quality healthcare, and they deserve access to life. And so with that as our fundamental guiding principle, we can kind of move mountains moving forward.
Thank you so much, Ms. Way. Mr. Holmes, what kinds of treatment residents are available right now, and are there 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. enough beds to meet those current demands, and are these beds long term, and what does the long term mean to you?
Okay. Yeah, yeah. Good ear. First addressment, what is available right now long term. In the city of Philadelphia? Nothing. Let's be clear what long term is deemed as now based off of the Medicare or the Medicaid that will pay for it. A long term facility, now inpatient facility, treatment facility is considered 28 days. After that, they buy for seven more days. I'm coming to fit seven more days, right? They have to resubmit a justification rationalization to the insurances that they pay that pay for these for an extension. So that means if you really doing and you fight and, you know, this does happen, but overall, it's about 60 days before you will even have to drop down a level of care, things of that 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. nature. Are there all other facilities, halfway house, three recovery houses, right, but when we're talking about the long term inpatient module, the TC module really no longer exists because it got to the point to where a lot of things that are not monitored started to become unmanage unhumane, some things some treatments some unfair treatments, felt as though it was too harsh of a treatment. It was second to man, might as well be in prison. That was the aspect of it. If I got to get 18, months in the treatment, I 15 might as well go do the time. So the face was 16 there, even though three to six months, it's 17 adequate inpatient time. There are facilities 18 that offer that. 19 Philadelphia just really doesn't within 20 the county of Philadelphia. And that right there 21 in itself speaks volumes because the as you 22 said, the massive or what we see on the open 23 happens within the county of Philadelphia, 24 although Philadelphia is not the only one exempt, but it should be where it's at. 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. So there aren't enough beds to meet the demand. There will never be enough beds to meet the demand. I mean, in reality, that we would have to make the whole city a rehab. Logically speaking, we know that that's not feasible, but mentally and spiritually, we can be a city that's a rehab, because the process of rehabilitation is many things, but as we speaking about the overdose or the opiate crisis, right, drug related empathy allows you to be a component. I heard this earlier from the board. What is the continuum of care or the curriculum of care, is empathy. I may not be able to do nothing. I may not even be able to understand your situation in that struggle. But as the old Hippocratic Oath said, do no harm. That simply means if I can't help, then I should do nothing to hurt the situation. And I have to have empathy in order to do that. Say, listen, I don't know. I work in this field and I'm outside all the time, and I'm not the solution for everything, but I know that 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. there is a solution. So even when I can't answer your question, I'm going to do my part to at least guide you in the right direction to receive the answer, not brush you off. Because I can assure you, in this fight against addiction, if any of them ever come to anybody and ask you for help, it means that they want it, right? They may not know how to get it and all the other things that we say, well, why they won't follow through? Recovery happens in the moment. It's not the five stages of change that we teach and that we learn from and that we get an understanding. Those five stages can happen in 10 seconds for a person that struggles with addiction. And if you're not swift on the foot with them, you just miss that window of opportunity. Don't mean it's the last window, but you miss that opportunity. So we have to really know Philadelphia can and does have the necessary stuff to really put a dent in the demand. But it's going to require the spirit of brotherly love in which this wonderful city ordained that name.
It's 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. going to require that.
Thank you so much. Thank you both for your testimony. We will now turn to public comment. Wait, wait, wait. Is there anybody else to testify on this Resolution? (No response.) We will now turn to public comment, and will the clerk read the names of those who registered?
Sarah Bellos, Sam Pfeiffer, Jasmine Henderson, and Jose DiMarco. Can you please come up? We're going to have to give two minutes per comment given the hour and number of folks commenting, so thank you for understanding.
Is it okay if Kenya Moussa take the spot of DiMarco? He's not here. Thank you.
Good afternoon, and thank you to the Committee for holding a hearing on such an important subject. In particular, thank you to Councilwoman Brooks for holding this hearing on such an important subject. 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. My name is Sarah Bellos, and I am a staff attorney with the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project. We are a statewide legal aid organization dedicated to advancing the constitutional and civil rights of people in incarcerated in Pennsylvania through providing legal assistance, advocacy, and representation. We aim to ensure humane conditions for incarcerated people, including access to adequate medical care, and my specific focus is on treatment for opioid use disorder, or OUD, in jails and prisons. And we've already heard from several people today about the importance of including jails and prisons in this conversation, but I just want to emphasize the important role that jails and prisons play in the overdose crisis, and particularly as it affects Black communities. As already noted, there are significant racial disparities in incarceration, and also people with opioid use disorder have high levels of criminal legal system involvement. In particular, the consideration of jails in this 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. conversation is important because the period of time after someone is released from incarceration is a particularly vulnerable time, and upon release from incarceration, people have a 12.7 times higher risk of dying from an overdose. Unfortunately, in Philadelphia, incarcerated people with OUD are not receiving the treatment they need for their disease, both due to the situation in the jails in general and also due to specific problems with the treatments available. The current state of the Philadelphia jails are reported on by a court appointed independent monitor as a part of the Remick v. City of Philadelphia litigation, and the monitor has stated that the trauma experienced by people incarcerated in the Philadelphia Department of Prisons is profound and clearly observable to all who work in, enter, or reside in PDP facilities.
Can you start wrapping it up? We're almost at the two minutes. I think I heard the timer.
Yes. I just want to note that all the 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. reports from the court monitor in Remick are available on our website, pilp.org, and we've also written a report on the availability of treatment for opioid use disorder in jails and prisons, including in Philadelphia, that describes the issues with those treatments in detail. And all of that can be found on our website and in the more detailed comments that we submitted to the hearing today.
Hello and good afternoon. My name is Kenya Moussa, and I am the co chair of Positive Women's Network. I am co lead of Pennsylvania's HIV Justice Alliance, which is the only coalition in Pennsylvania dedicated to end the criminalization of people living with HIV in the commonwealth. I'm also an advocate of the Health Not Prisons Collective. HNP is a collective of five organizations that work together to combat the many ways that people living with HIV and communities most impacted by HIV are surveilled, 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. policed, and criminalized. I'm also a Black woman in Philadelphia living with HIV. I work to end the criminalization of HIV and other public health issues, including the criminalization of poverty, substance use, and homelessness. For decades, people living with HIV have been targeted by racist, dehumanizing, surveillance, containment, and policing practices, and I have to speak out when I have seen the same failed backward practices being weaponized against people who use substance. Responding to substance use disorders through increased policing not only undermines the public health and human rights, but jeopardizes the long term survival of communities. Syringe service programs provide people with people who inject substances with new needles and injection equipment to reduce the harm from injection substance use. It's also a preventive tool to save people from hep C and HIV. Decriminalization is a harm reduction strategy that gives us the 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. ability to treat substance use disorder as a public health issue rather than a criminal activity. Our budgets show our priorities. I ask the City Council, invest in Black communities, not backwards policies. Invest in harm reduction practices, not police. And finally, invest in health and our presence. Thank you.
Hey all, appreciate your help. My name is Sam Pfeiffer. I'm a local community organizer, a harm reductionist, a mother, and a child of parents who lived with substance disorders. I organized with the Positive Women's Network alongside Kenya here, and she explained to you who PWN is. Something she hasn't explained yet is that we run field programs for Geo TV efforts and Issue ID campaigns in North Philadelphia, the 11th, 16th, and 38th wards around Nicetown, Allegheny, around Connie Mack rec. We also engage in the decriminalization 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. of HIV laws in Philly and throughout and PA. In the last few years, the PWN PA chapter has been talking to our community through phone banking and door knocking campaigns about safe syringe programs and overdose prevention centers. We asked folks their thoughts and feelings about SSPs and OPCs and do education on the spot. Through these conversations, we have identified thousands of folks that support harm reduction tools. We have sign ons in the thousands of folks demanding that we keep SSPs and OPCs in Philadelphia. Although I know Councilwoman Lozada has already striked down OPCs, there's still hope for SSPs. Through these conversations sorry, I'm rushing. We have heard loud and clear that our community not only wants to keep, but also expand, harm reduction tools. Recently at a local town hall in Fairmount, we heard from Mayor Parker's managing director, Adam Thiel, on the administration's plan and future of SSPs. The Parker administration plans to cut $900,000 from the budget for SSPs from the city's 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. budget and also divert $1 million in funds away from the opioid crisis. After sharing with Adam that the elimination of SSP funding will cause a significant spike in HIV cases, he said that his administration is hoping that philanthropic organizations will backfill that loss. A hope is just that, an empty wish. There is no true plan to backfill those dollars, only hopes. I, along with those thousands of people that I spoke about earlier, harm reduction supporters, are urging City Council to do something about the significant pending loss in SSPs. I had some facts to share, but folks before me have already done that, so I just really hope that you all can get into the ear of our mayor and move some harm reduction tools forward. And I really thank you all for being comrades and allies in this fight.
Thank you so much. Thank you all. Clerk, can you read the name of the next folks? 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179.
Will Carlita Ferrer, Jamie Walker, Rashid Village, and John B. Shah please come up?
Hold on. We're going to try to get four people up at a time.
All right. Please state your name for the record and continue with your testimony.
My name is Jamie Walker. I'm a local community organizer. I work with multiple organizations, and I sat here and I listened today. I just want to mention that every one of those numbers is connected to a name. Every one of those names has a family. Every one of those families have friends and families. So one overdose has one big reach. But not only that, I didn't hear 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. anything about Roxborough, Manayunk, Germantown, West Oak Lane, East Oak Lane. I didn't hear nothing about harm reduction in none of those areas. All of those areas have Black and Brown families that are affected by this crisis. That's all I have.
Just to be clear, so we just this is a citywide. It's just the folks that came to testify. We're primarily from those particular areas. This hearing is servicing all Black folks in the city, and that's what this hearing is, to talk about solutions for all folks in the city. It's just that no one signed up from those areas to say anything, and I really do the neighborhoods that you named would be the ones that would probably be the most stigmatized to even come to a hearing to even talk about this.
You're welcome. 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179.
My name is Carlita Ferrer. I've been working in nightlife for seven years now, and I've personally witnessed quite a few overdoses during that time. According to the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, there was an 9 percent increase in unintentional drug overdose 10 deaths from 2021 to 2022. In that time, I also 11 lost friends to overdoses by 2022. Philadelphia's communities of color were disproportionately affected, and specifically, non-Hispanic Black overdose deaths were increased by a whopping 87 percent. This issue can be improved by drug users having access to harm reduction supplies and resources, such as Narcan, needle exchange, testing strips, places to drop sharps, overdose prevention sites, other programs, shelter, access to food and healthcare. These are the resources that I wish that my friends had access to before they passed. When we speak on the safety of the community, we speak on the safety of drug users 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. in the community as well. Taking the necessary steps to provide human harm reduction supplies and resources can and will save the lives of community members. In order for the city to help lessen overdose deaths, we must prioritize harm reduction, including healthcare and shelter. Also, if the city stopped criminalizing drug users, it could help lessen overdose deaths. If the city continues to penalize people as punishment for coping, the need for coping will continue and create a toxic cycle that will inevitably lead to overdose. In conclusion, I believe that having access to more harm reduction supplies and resources such as healthcare, shelter, and access to food, in addition to the harm reduction methods already utilized by the city, can help reduce overdose deaths. And also, decriminalizing drug use can end a toxic cycle that can lead to overdose deaths. Thank you.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you. My name is Zoe Soslow. I'm a 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. Philadelphia resident and lead technical advisor for the work of Vital Strategies Overdose Prevention program in Pennsylvania. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss Philadelphia's escalating overdose crisis and the outsized impact on Black Philadelphians. Drug use is a health issue that requires an evidence driven public health response. Decades of research is clear and shows that successful interventions must focus on reducing criminalization, increasing access to evidence based treatments like methadone and buprenorphine, ensuring treatment services are voluntary and not coerced, and increasing access to life-saving tools like syringes, naloxone, and drug checking resources like test strips. Punitive responses like incarceration exacerbate health harms for people who use drugs and disproportionately affect Black individuals. Research from Philadelphia found that people leaving incarceration were 37 times more likely to die of an overdose in the two weeks following incarceration. Evidence based treatments like 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. methadone and buprenorphine reduced the likelihood of dying from an overdose by 59 and 38 percent, respectively. Yet, there are significant racial disparities in access. Research found that White patients were prescribed buprenorphine at twice the rate of Black patients following an overdose. We must support life saving tools like syringe service programs, or SSPs, which are associated with an approximate 50 percent reduction in HIV and hepatitis C incidence and a five fold increased likelihood of entering substance use treatment. Research also demonstrates public safety benefits. Despite misconceptions, neighborhoods with SSPs do not experience an increase of economically motivated crimes and actually see reductions in syringe litter compared to neighborhoods without an SSP. Equitable access and understanding how systems impact access is key. A study in Philadelphia found that concentrated policing efforts reduced SSP use among Black participants 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. at greater rates than their White counterparts. Research shows that harm reduction saves lives. However, it cannot be expected to act as a replacement for a robust social safety net. Harm reduction must be recognized as an evidence based public health service that should be community led and adequately and sustainably funded to address the potent, volatile, and increasingly synthetic drug supply. Thank you.
Thank you all so much for your testimony. Clerk, can you read the next names?
Will Florencia Roland, Jasmine Barnes, and Kelly Murray please come up.
Please state your name for the record and continue with your testimony.
I can go first. Hi. My name is Jasmine Barnes. I'm here representing the Center for Addiction Medicine and Policy at UPenn. I stand before you as someone with 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. lived experience. Both of my parents struggled with substance use throughout my childhood. I am living proof that recovery is possible. And when considering what to share, I reflect on my work and experience providing support to one patient in particular in my work, and I'll proceed with her story. As a healthcare advocate, I bore witness I'm going to call her Jane to protect her confidentiality. I bore witness to Jane's persistent efforts to seek help. Our health system became familiar terrain for her, a space where she shared her struggles in pursuit of understanding and support. However, the responses she encountered were often tainted by preconceived notions and biases, contributing to a sense of isolation that further separated her and the help that she desperately needed. Our attempts to provide services were met with the stark reality of a flawed system. We partnered with her to support her with starting medications for her opioid use disorder, securing recovery housing placement, discussing 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. her goals, and beginning to heal her relationships. Yet, the impact was hindered by a larger societal framework that stigmatized rather than supported. The very essence of Jean's identity, being a young Black woman with a substance use disorder, was a label that overshadowed any efforts to address theroots of her struggles. In the end, her battle reached a devastating conclusion, a life cut short by overdose. Her story, far from a neatly tied narrative, exposes the systemic failures that permeate our healthcare system and society at large. The stigma she faced, the discrimination she endured, and the ultimate tragedy of her passing reflect the harsh reality that countless individuals like Jane confront daily. As I reflect on the time spent supporting her, the weight of grief lingers. Her struggle was not a storybook tale with a happy ending. It's a stark reminder of the urgent need for systemic change, a call to dismantle the barriers that perpetuate stigma and 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. discrimination in healthcare and beyond. These violent, pervasive structures kill hope and our core belief that recovery is possible for everyone. And one question remains, what happens when the hope for recovery is met with policies that undermine progress? Her story is a haunting plea for a world where individuals facing substance use disorders are met with empathy and not judgment. It urges us to confront these biases ingrained in our society, our societal fabric, and work towards a reality where every patient, irrespective of their struggles, every person, irrespective of their struggles, can access the support and understanding they desperately seek. Her death is a pressing reminder of the countless ways our systems fail to protect Black people who use drugs. And my hope is that her story will cut the deep enough to inspire us to work harder to create better policies that ensure equitable, non-stigmatizing care for all patients and hold each other accountable to their end. 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. Thank you.
Hi. My name is Kelly Murray, and I'm a certified recovery specialist and care coordinator at Penn Presbyterian Hospital. I have worked with the syringe program at Prevention Point for a couple years, and at my early recovery, which I feel saved my life. I was incarcerated, and I didn't feel I had any hope to find work, but they found it in they found the worth in me that I didn't see in myself. They put me through to be a peer support specialist, then to a certified recovery specialist, and now I took that to University of Penn to support people with substance use disorder. And being on the front lines, if not for the street engagement with harm reduction and the relations building trust these programs provide, I have no idea how many countless amount of people that those numbers would have risen so much higher. The harm reduction program is where 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. relationships begin and they build trust along with CPS for mental health, and a CRS with people in recovery at Penn emergency room, detox units, inpatient floors, and I work in the primary care setting as a recovery care coordinator. The continuum of care is successful. I have worked with over 500 people that I have I have books that I write everyone's name in. So I go I just that's just an average. It may be it has to be more because they're not all written down. But I must say that continuum of care that Penn provides as outpatient, as a long term treatment, I don't believe that inpatient is the only pathway to do this. I feel people need the social determinants of health to support their journey, like going through the which harm reduction has created so many programs, like the outreach mobile units for Suboxone. I worked on that on Kensington and Allegheny. We didn't even have a bathroom. We were doing urines right in the van. But you know what? People came every 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. week, and every week, little by little, they engaged more and more and more until they were able to get on that medication, and then we were able to help them with other services. And from my experience, sending people straight to a jail or a rehab in the drug supply today with the xylazine is inhumane. I watch people daily in the hospital go through withdrawal that is something like I've never seen. I have used Xanax. That was the most horrific withdrawal imaginable. And there are protocols for that, and people get treatment for that. They are admitted into hospital for benzos. They're admitted in a hospital for alcohol because it's so dangerous. So is xylazine, and so is fentanyl. And people are suffering. I've witnessed people in withdrawal so many times from the xylazine and benzos that need professional care. They need evidence based detox. In the past six years of my experience with patients in extreme withdrawal, this is what kept so many people out there, because they could 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. not come in, because they knew they would not get the proper withdrawal management. The reasons the inpatient and they have a good reason, due to the treatment that they get in jails and treatment centers. They're not properly they're not properly proper protocols to do this. They're throwing people in for supplemental withdrawal.
If you can begin to wrap up. Your two minutes is up.
Yes. I'm sorry. And I hope the city officials know that right now, CBH gives people five days of detox. That's it. And they only have to hav they have to have alcohol and they have to have benzos. They get sent straight to rehab, and that's because they're getting put on Suboxone. It's not that easy to get put on Suboxone. It takes sometimes 7, 10 days, 30 days to feel better. And I'm seeing people coming out of rehabs and jails that have been totally withdrawal. They went completely through 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. withdrawal. They come out, and that's they are a higher risk for an overdose. And that needs to stop. And I appreciate it. Thank you.
Florencia Roland. I am currently in recovery coming from Levittown. I'm from Kensington, my family is from Kensington, but I chose to go to Levittown to get recovery. She is my recovery specialist. I am a certified peer specialist as well. It took a bump in my head a few times just to get to where just to get even a chance to get up here to speak. Based off of everything that happens in the Kensington area as far as seeing it go from where things were not taboo to being taboo and people walking around with needles in their neck, being able to be call at your recovery right where you're at saved my life; Esperanza, Prevention Point, and those different entities together. However, as once I got my recovery and 270 days later, it's hard to get a job as a 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. peer supporter. Now, where's the help there to take somebody who's an ex offender/peer supporter, who's actually in the courts with a proper judge, Ms. Warrior, and then put them to work? If that's I mean, I have all the lived experience you possibly need, know exactly how the individual's up there, and bilingual, etc., etc. So why not put that to use for other individuals that are inside the prison system as well? Being able to attach those things and bring them people out and then work with individuals like this. I got a big tab out in Levittown that I've got to pay because medical doesn't cover Philadelphia. Philadelphia doesn't cover Levittown. I'm at the end of the day, I've still got to pay them people up there for holding me. But by the grace of God, they've been able to hold, hold not hold that over my head and allow me to continue on to work with women like Kelly and other individuals. But that might be another bracket that need to be looked at. 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. Try to get people back employed that had that lived experience like this and bring them back because the system does work. Certain judges are there if you're hungry enough. I come out here every day from Levittown with my own money that I don't got. So if I'm hungry enough to come out here, then that you should be hungry enough. Accountability is one thing to be accountable, but to say you're not holding everybody everybody needs to be held accountable, even me. That's what I got.
Thank you so much for your testimony. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Clerk, can you read the next three names, please?
Brice Armond Patterson, Catherine Freeland, Sylvana Mazzella, and Beatrice Zovich.
Can you state your name for the record and continue with your testimony? And we'll just go in order. 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179.
Okay. My name is Brice Armond Patterson. I have organized on the street for several years in Philadelphia. I think many of us have shared different positions on the streets, familiar faces on other sides, but I think that we can unify under some specific issues. Since I've been on the street, what I've noticed amongst my organization that I work for, along with when I have volunteered, is that in particularly West Philadelphia and Southwest, we have different characteristics when it comes to opioid use. It transitions from the street into the home, making the visual understanding of the scope of the issue very difficult. And although not thoroughly tracked, given the nature of our work, we observe overdose numbers among Black residents continue to rise. Through my few years of working on the street, via both independent community work, volunteering, and now as a peer outreach specialist, I have seen the same repeat outcomes, outcomes that result in harm reduction 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. groups and non profits being the last line of defense and care for vulnerable community members, especially when throughout all all other outlets, they are turned away, rejected, shamed, or criminalized. Our care is essential, but I think most of us can agree that we must accept that it is nowhere near what is necessary to solve these issues. We are a Band-Aid on the gaping wound of exasperated material conditions, and the reality is that our community has been failed by for profit interests and the necessities of life and subsistence, for-profit healthcare, and denial of housing and dignity so that real estate companies, landlords, and others can capitalize off of the dispossession and suffering of our people. Government leadership, which only sustains a slowly crumbling society while in a respectable degree maintains the streets, water systems, electrical infrastructure and roads, other infrastructure necessary for our sustainment, many politicians still practice the 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. practice of consistent betrayal of our constituents, allowing them to be preyed upon by predatory developers, be denied critical care in hospitals, allowance for continued expansion between those who who have wealth and those who do not in the largest poor city in the United States. There is an avoidance at mobilizing industry and the productive development in the city that could be employed to generate stable income for generations of people denied jobs. These issues may seem like they are secondary to the epidemic of addiction and substance use, but the reality is that these are directly related. The issues of pharmaceutical abuse, the history of pushing addictive substances onto populations for profit, gaining billions from the death of our citizens, and making no attempts to support or maintain the result in a meaningful fashion. The denial of favorable material conditions such as stable housing as a right, nutrition as a right, advanced education and job training as a right, not only to make up for the 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. historical denial and destruction of our Black community and the rest of the community, but because these conditions would benefit society and our productive development as a whole. Instead, we see people, human beings, as temporary, exploitable resources. Who cares if we die in filth and retch? For a time, we generate labor, we take on debts, and when our communities collapse, the speculative value of the property plummets and can be reaped and collected up by your very own developer friends. So to solve this issue, the commitment is clear. We need a broad mobilization of wide reaching healthcare that is freely available to all people, no matter their condition or disposition.
A healthcare system which is centralized via a union of medical staff, workers, doctors, patients, and outside of the hands of executives, trustees, stakeholders, and investors. We must eliminate the exploitation of the for profit systems that weaponize our necessities of life for the self-described most 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. advanced country in the world, and form a union of frontline workers from the ground of harm reduction and critical community care that can work together to determine the best ways possible to guide our people through their recovery.
Can you begin wrapping up your testimony? You're at your two minutes.
This will not only come through the decisions this will not come through the decisions of vile, vampiristic politicians or developers or real estate moguls who work with the very individuals who exploit us, but from the populations that are at the root at driving the function of this very society with their labor. I think many of us have had our time. We're tired of being betrayed, and it is time for 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. others to listen to us and for us to stop asking for power and representation, and for us to start taking it within our own hands.
Good afternoon. Thank you to Councilmember Brooks for bringing this Resolution. I'm here today to share support. My name is Dr. Catherine Freeland, and I'm the associate director of public health at the Hepatitis B Foundation. And we've been working in the city for over 15 years to provide free hepatitis B screening and linkage to care. Philadelphia, as we've seen today, has seen a major impact of the opioid epidemic, and I'd like to just share some data about infectious disease and the impact that the opioid epidemic has had on infectious diseases in our city. From the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, data from their recent hepatitis reporting shows that hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV are directly linked to the opioid crisis 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. in our city, and the report from 2021 demonstrated that individuals living with hepatitis B were more likely to be of Asian and African descent. Similarly, those with hepatitis C were more likely to be Black and inject drugs in our city. These same individuals can face challenges accessing healthcare, face stigma and discrimination. Harm reduction organizations are often non judgmental safe havens for care and a first step in accessing treatment. Infectious disease prevention is a really important part of this conversation. Black and Brown communities face significant challenges accessing healthcare for infectious diseases, and Philadelphia is known to have several healthcare deserts that impact these communities specifically. This is often exacerbated by substance use disorders as well, and we need to invest in resources to address some of these significant health disparities that are impacting these communities. Thank you so much for the opportunity 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. to provide testimony.
Good afternoon. My name is Beatrice Zovich, and I am a public health program manager at the Hepatitis B Foundation. First and foremost, thank you very much to Councilmember Brooks for introducing this Resolution, and I'm here today to express my support. Hepatitis B and C are grave threats to public health that are more pronounced in the community of people who use drugs, among which rates of acute hepatitis B have risen sharply since 2009, coinciding with the opioid epidemic. A recent study conducted by the Hepatitis B Foundation and in partnership with Prevention Point Philadelphia found high rates of both hepatitis B and Delta in the community, underscoring the ongoing urgency of this public health threat. Left undiagnosed and unmanaged, these viruses can have serious consequences up to and including liver cancer, which is one of the deadliest cancers globally. By not providing public health and 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. social services for all those who are at risk for hepatitis B and C, both of which can be prevented with appropriate tools and resources, we are failing these communities, and we are culpable for the the adverse health outcomes they may experience. Given that Black communities in the city of Philadelphia continue to be disproportionately impacted by drug use, overdose, and hepatitis B and C, the issue becomes one of racial justice as well as health equity. Vaccine rates are lower among Black Philadelphians, leaving community members at higher risk of infection. Linkage to care for hepatitis B and C is challenging overall, and especially so in North Philadelphia, where significant healthcare deserts exists, as has been mentioned, and there is limited access to trusted care in the community. Resources for physicians and community organizations are needed to address these challenges and prevent long term chronic illnesses, and it is economical to prevent 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. disease and provide primary care. The city of Philadelphia is currently at a crossroads. We have the opportunity to take thoughtful and evidence based resource measures and to implement public health and harm reduction interventions that center communities and can prevent widespread disease outbreaks from further damaging communities already heavily and adversely impacted by the multi layered tragedies wrought by the opioid epidemic. Now is the time. Hepatitis can't wait. Thank you very much for hearing my testimony today.
Hi, good afternoon. My name is Michaela Jackson, and I am the program director of prevention policy at the Hepatitis B Foundation. So we've heard a lot from wonderful folks and organizations today, so I promise to keep it brief. So at the foundation, I actually work on the national level doing a lot of policy, and we see a lot of harm reduction groups. So as you've heard, there's a connection between 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. infectious diseases and the rising of them and the opioid epidemic, and we're seeing it across the nation. But I just want to say that Philadelphia has been a model for a very long time for a lot of states and a lot of cities on how we can do better on harm reduction. It's been a lot of cities just asking for Philadelphia to kind of be a leader. They're looking for Philadelphia to be a leader given what's going on in our communities and what they've been seeing. And the resources, the data, what we're putting out is really, really helping a lot of other people across the nation. So even though it might seem small and just to the city, this is definitely a national issue that's impacting a lot of groups, and I'm really proud of Philadelphia for being that leader, but obviously, resources are necessary. My work in the harm reduction community here in Philadelphia has been really, really impactful. You meet the nicest, most compassionate people. You hear their stories, 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. you hear what's going on, and it's moving to see. But in these communities, groups, they really want to help their groups, their people, and every member that is going on around them. So the resources and funding is just not there for them to sustain all of these resources for prevention services, for hepatitis B, for treatment, linkage to care that's needed. So I'm really glad that we've had this conversation today, and that we've heard from all of these groups to see the work that they're doing, and I think that we can continue on the right path and really increase the momentum. We're going to do great. Thank you.
Hello. My name is Ronnie Begum. I am an organizer in the city of Philadelphia, and I really want to start off my comment by particularly thanking the two of you for staying out this really long day. It has been really disheartening over the years when conversations on harm reduction are broached, that City Council members often leave the room. This is not the first time that 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. I am witnessing City Council members leave the room when there is a conversation of harm reduction going on. So I really want to thank the both of you for staying out and hearing of these conversations. As part of my testimony, I want to specifically raise the issue of disability and inequitable access to healthcare. While I agree that pharmaceutical companies are exploitative, and alleged pursual of their accountability has left disabled patients, especially Black, non Hispanic populations, in the dust, which also leads to overdoses. So what do I mean by that? For years now, I have watched developers encroach on disenfranchised neighborhoods, primarily Black neighborhoods. By skyrocketing rents, they are directly responsible for the booming crisis of the unhoused, who lose access not only to housing, but food and whatever little access to healthcare and other supports they have. Rising rents also raise other types of violence, such as gun violence, at an ongoing 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. SARS CoV 2 pandemic, also known as the COVID-19 pandemic, to which disenfranchised populations, particularly Black populations, are at risk of catching and also developing major disability issues after that. What this results in is not only the loss of basic necessities and healthcare and support and community, right? So rent is rising, people are getting sick, people are losing jobs, people are losing support, people are ending up on the streets. All of this also exaggerates ongoing and renewed disabilities. I really, really want people in this room to understand that there are people in our community who really, really need opioids. They really, really need stimulants and every other drugs known to human just to function and survive. I have watched people with debilitating disabilities be stabilized on opioids, be stabilized on stimulants, and then I have watched I have watched so many disabled people then lose access to these prescription opioids and 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. lose access to prescription stimulants because of rising hysteria and stigma against these medications. I have watched these same people, also often because of stigma and hysteria, also refuse medication which exacerbates their disabilities. Because of these things, because of because of loss to healthcare and loss to medication, not only do they become destabilized in terms of their healthcare, they also become disabled destabilized in other parts of their lives. Okay. More and more people then have to turn to street supply because they don't have access to prescription supply, and we need to understand that because disability is rising, right, like as COVID-19 just goes on, and as disability rises, as housing crisis goes on, as disability rises, prescription grade medications are disappearing. They're just disappearing off of pharmacies. They're just disappearing like doctors are just not prescribing them. People are afraid of prescribing them. So medical graded prescriptions are just disappearing. 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. Black disabled people are extremely impacted by this. To echo many of the panelists and many of the other speakers before me, harm reduction here means building a new infrastructure.
And I would personally recommend closing the funding to build this new infrastructure by redirecting funds from the police, actually really, really regulating these developers and the rent issue that is happening, and also really, really re examining the tax abatements that the city gives out to corporations and to institutions that don't actually pour back into our communities. Thank you for your time.
Thank you so much for your testimony. Clerk, can you read the next names?
Ashish Thakrar, Cheryl Hill, Preston Davis, EJ Indigo, and Carla Sofronski. I believe they're  they've all left.
Okay. Is there anyone else left to testify on this resolution? 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. (No response.)
This concludes the public hearing on Resolution No. 240197. Thank you. (Committee of the Whole adjourned at 6:15 p.m.) 5/21/24 - COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - RESOLUTION 240179. CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIPTIONIST I, IVY JUNG, Legal Transcriptionist, do hereby certify: That the foregoing is a complete and true transcription of the original digital audio recording of the proceedings captured in the foregoing matter. IN WITNESS THEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 27th day of May, 2024. ______________________________________ Ivy Jung