Public Health

When Pennsylvania's new natural gas law, which takes effect Saturday, was being debated, the focus was on high-profile issues such as the new impact fee. But just before it passed, medical provisions were added that now have some physicians worried it will compromise public health. Except in an emergency, a physician who needs proprietary information about chemicals used in natural gas drilling to assess a patient must provide "a written statement" to a company, according to the act, and must sign a confidentiality agreement.

The city government and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia are planning to join forces to provide health care to South Philadelphia adults and children in a unique arrangement that might also include a new library and recreation center. The plan, announced by Mayor Nutter during Thursday's budget address, moves two existing clinics - a pediatric practice owned by the hospital and a city health center that mainly serves adults, each of them in need of expansion - into one building that would be constructed by the hospital on city land and outfitted by both.

With the smart goal of transforming the Delaware waterfront by reconnecting Philadelphia to the river, it's not a question of building new attractions to attract visitors. Rather, it's about opening up more routes for people to reach the river that's there. So the progress reported last week toward creating a permanent network of trails and public spaces at the water's edge represents an important step forward. The acquisition of four piers and five acres of land by the agency overseeing public waterfront development means it's no longer a question of whether but of when greater waterfront recreational options will arrive.

If you see a man on the street bleeding, you might apply pressure to his wound if you know what you're doing, or call an ambulance if you know that you don't. How about if you see a woman panicking, or mumbling incoherently? Do you talk to her? Ignore her? Call 911? "Most people don't have a clue what to do," said Arthur C. Evans, Philadelphia's director of behavioral health, who on Thursday rolled out a "Mental Health First Aid" campaign that officials described as the biggest implementation of a relatively new concept, at least in the United States.

Sarah Boardman Furnas, 68, of Chestnut Hill, a senior administrator with the Philadelphia Health Promotion Council who helped simplify health-care and medical literature for consumers, died of cancer Thursday, Dec. 22, at Pennsylvania Hospital. The nonprofit council, on which Mrs. Furnas served from 1986 to 2002, was founded in 1981 as the Southeastern Pennsylvania High Blood Pressure Control Program. Funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, its mission is to implement community-based programs to fight hypertension.

It has been almost two years since Delaware County commissioned Johns Hopkins University to conduct a survey of the gaps in public-health coverage. And it has been seven months since George Avetian, a family-practice physician in Upper Darby, was appointed senior medical adviser to help coordinate public-health efforts in the county and fulfill the first of the study's recommendations. The county does not have a county-based public health department. The county's Department of Intercommunity Health acts as a referral center on public-health issues.

City sadly lacking in public health I was proud to attend Day 5 of Occupy Philadelphia as a physician interested in the general issue of fairness in our city and in our nation. The issue that I believe is unique to our city, in contrast to similar gatherings in other U.S. cities, is what I refer to as medicine vs. health. Our city and region have a unique abundance of world-class, high-tech, and high-cost medical institutions and supporting industries. But we are sadly lacking in public health - especially our growing number of poor.

What is public health? Well, it's the health of the public. And its practitioners include engineers (designing water-treatment plants), nutritionists (developing healthy diets), even politicians (passing laws on bioterrorism and insurance). And bloggers. In "The Public's Health" ( www.philly.com/publichealth ), their new blog, Michael Yudell and Jonathan Purtle are on a mission to help us understand why we as a nation or a city or a neighborhood are ailing or not - and to begin a dialogue with readers on what can be done about it. "I'd like to hear creative ideas and solutions to some of the challenges we face," says Yudell, an associate professor at the Drexel University School of Public Health.

The low hum from the ventilation system and the children's voices in the back corner made it difficult to hear, but the 30 people gathered at Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish listened intently to the woman who stood before them brandishing a bottle of salty Adobo seasoning. "Tonight we are here to tell you, mi gente, about nutrition," said Irma Zamora, 37, in Spanish. "We are consuming too much sodium. " Zamora and her fellow presenters are not doctors or nurses and do not claim to be. They are promotoras - volunteer "health promoters" who carry messages of health and wellness to their peers, mostly Spanish-speaking Mexicans in South Philadelphia.

HARRISBURG - Stop! In the name of the secretary of health! Eli N. Avila, Gov. Corbett's secretary of health, has ordered up new blue windbreakers on the taxpayers' dime, with Department of Health emblazoned on the front and back. The windbreakers, for Avila and his executive staff, also display the state seal on a retractable flap. In all, the Health Department said, nine of the windbreakers have been ordered, at a cost to the state of $553.82. Avila also dipped into his own pocket this year to have a badge made for himself, with Secretary of Health around the state seal - until Corbett's office nixed this idea.