NEW COMMISSIONER: Dr. Joxel Garcia was appointed Friday to serve as first deputy commissioner and chief program officer at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Garcia will facilitate city health programs across different divisions of the agency, including the city’s life expectancy campaign HealthyNYC, and will oversee divisions of disease control, environmental health, family and child health and mental hygiene, the agency said. The new deputy commissioner previously worked in the private sector and at the federal level, serving as the 14th Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and a Four-Star Admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service.
SUICIDE PREVENTION: The city launched a prevention program in public hospitals in Queens and the Bronx to support children who attempted suicide, Mayor Eric Adams announced on Friday. The program aims to engage kids who were hospitalized for a suicide attempt through their hospital stay and provide follow-up care for at least three months, as the risk of a repeated attempt is highest up to a month after kids leave the hospital, health officials said. The prevention program will be available at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens and Lincoln, Jacobi and North Central Bronx facilities.
DRUG CHECKING ALERT: The state Department of Health issued a public health alert on Friday after its drug checking program detected a dangerous mix of substances including medetomidine in Central New York and the Capital Region. The synthetic sedative, used in veterinary medicine, is more potent in the central nervous system than xylazine, another veterinary drug that officials have warned about due to its ability to cause large open wounds and fatal overdoses. The agency found two drug samples including medetomidine that were linked to non-fatal overdoses.
Amanda D'Ambrosio , 2024-06-24 11:33:05
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