The health task force group that was first created in 2010 by Senator Campbell, has continued to play a significant role in the community. For the House of Representatives, the group was instrumental in organizing visits to children with special needs healthcare facilities, coordinated with several organizations including the homeless, fought for foreign physicians to work in their profession to help decrease what they anticipated would be a physician shortage in years to come. There were several foreign physicians on the health task force. Former Health Task Vice-Chair and physician, Dr. Muddasir Mohammed Ghouse, along with Former Health Task Force member and Chief Legal Counsel for Childnet, Derrick Roberts, and Dr. Vismay Shankar Kanthe, MD (who has since passed away), led the effort in the research and drafting of the bill on children with special needs, leading to the filing of a house bill. Health Task Force Chair at the time, Jennifer Leslie, researched and helped draft the Bakers Act bill.
The health task force had comprised of Julia Yarbrough, a successful television anchor and Emmy Award journalist, who formulated a press release that shone a light on the health task force. Other significant health task force members were Dr. Claudia DiStrito, Florida International University Professor of Public Health and Former Hospital Senior Vice President; as well as, Jackie Gonzalez, current Senior Vice President & Chief Nursing Officer of Miami Children’s Hospital, who were passionate in their role in ensuring that the children with special needs research and bill draft would result in a good health policy that positively impacts the lives of vulnerable children.
Since Senator Daphne Campbell has entered the Senate, her health task force has been restructured with the aim to accomplish even more. As such, the team launched its Senate District 38 Health Task Force in style at North Miami Beach City hall, where Former Health Task Force Vice-Chair, Mercedes Alvarez, introduced the concept of “The Drug Free World” with the hope to stimulate a conversation on Opioids – later turned out to be a national conversation.
Since then, members of the Florida Senate District 38 Health Task Force have sat in on Florida National University Powerhouse meetings to fight against human trafficking, coordinated community health fairs, aired on the radio to highlight health task force activities, aired on television to educate the public about health and wellness awareness, conducted three major senatorial hospital tours at Mount Sinai Medical Center, Jackson North hospital, and Miami Jewish Health System Douglas Gardens Hospital, a successful healthcare townhall meeting, and a medical supplies drive for Haiti where the health task force shipped several electric hospital beds to Justinien Hospital.
Under Dr. Katherine Ntekim’s chairship, the Florida Senate District 38 Health Task Force has once again re-strategized, this time to maintain its momentum and sharpen its focus on accomplishing legislative-related goals. Members of the team identified two pressing healthcare issues: 1) Human Trafficking, and 2) Lack of Family Caregiver Support. The team quickly formulated the research hypotheses followed by months of intense research and the submission of two research and recommendations reports and bill proposals.
In continuing to assess the healthcare community issues from a hospital system’s perspective, members of the Florida Senate District 38 Health Task Force conducted two brief Senatorial visits to Aventura Hospital. Another hospital continually reaches out to the health task force to donate hospital mattresses for the Justinien Hospital in Haiti. The Florida Senate District 38 Health Task Force is riveted with optimism and looks forward to accomplishing even more under the Honorable Florida State Senator Daphne Campbell.
It was very important for this team to visit Tallahasse and let the legislators know what the health task force is about, the changes that the task force has made in the community and the State of Florida; but moreover, to let them know that the task force is still at work, and that the team is asking for legislative support on the healthcare bills, Senate Bill 1786 Family Care Tax Credit and Senate Bill 1784 Human Trafficking. Members of the health task force said “what we do is to save lives, and we only ask that the legislators help us in the fight to save more lives. In voting yes on SB 1784 and 1786, you will help us and you would have met that challenge.”
