Photo credit: Evan Casey
Milwaukee Health Department Commissioner Jeanette Kowalik
A health department that has been riddled with deficiencies and turmoil following the resignation of former commissioner Bevan Baker last January will likely be getting a new leader Wednesday.
The Public Safety and Health Committee held a special meeting Tuesday to approve Milwaukee native Jeanette Kowalik as the new health commissioner. The Common Council will meet Wednesday to hold a final vote on the decision of the subcommittee.
“The days of operating in the dark will be abolished,” Kowalik said at the meeting. “Public health is not a political issue or platform. It’s for all of us.”
The approval came after a discussion with Interim Commissioner Patricia McManus and alderpeople at the meeting about McManus’s efforts to clean up the department the past six months. McManus took over the department following the resignation of former commissioner Baker amidst his handling of the city’s lead abatement program.
“There are plenty of problems you have been aware of, some of the more pressing problems you haven’t been aware of,” McManus said. “Some of the things I want to get done I haven’t been able to get done.”
McManus spoke at length about efforts made by the city to clean up homes that have tested positive for lead. Ald. Mark Borkowski took issue with the fact that the department has only made five homes with lead-poisoned children living in them safe during the first five months of the year. This was found through an open records request made by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
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The Public Safety and Health Committee met with Interim Commissioner Patricia McManus Tuesday to discuss the health department moving forward.
“We said we have to triage, we have to do whatever it takes, because first and foremost, those families have to come first,” said Borkowski, referring to a common council subcommittee meeting that discussed the issue months ago. “The safety and health of those children at 6 and under were in most jeopardy.”
McManus blamed the delay on training and hiring new people to do the job. This comes after The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development sent a letter to the health department in February issuing a “stop work order” so that the department could improve its practices.
“It takes a while to get all of this stuff done… but it’s not an excuse,” said McManus. “I have said this before, that to me the lead issue was only like a canary in the mine in terms of other issues going on in the department, and this has basically come to fruition.”
Other issues addressed by McManus at the meeting included concerns about nursing management, transparency and communication, the absence of senior staff, lack of historical records, missing records and the directions of managers at the department. Even so, Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton praised McManus for her efforts and for taking on the task. “A smooth transition is extremely important,” he said. “You’d like to reduce the learning curve.”
Mayor Tom Barrett’s pick for Commissioner will be voted on at the Common Council meeting Wednesday. Jeanette Kowalik has served as the City of Chicago’s Director of STI Surveillance, and UW-Madison's Director of Prevention and Campus Health Initiatives. She has most recently served as the Associate Director of Women’s and Infant Health at the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs in Washington D.C.
“There’s a lot of work to do,” she said. “I’m 100% committed to having a smooth transition. My goal is to bring us together. Being very transparent and accountable is going to be the only way that we are going to move forward.”
