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Oxiris Barbot (/ɔːkˈsiːriːs/, born 1965 or 1966) is an American pediatrician who served as the Commissioner of Health of the City of New York from 2018 to 2020. She was then appointed to public health positions with Columbia University and the JPB Foundation, and in 2022 became president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit United Hospital Fund.

Early life and education

Barbot was born at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan in New York City, and refers to herself as a "Nuyorican," a term of pride used by New Yorkers who have deep Puerto Rican roots. She lived in the Patterson Houses in the Bronx, before moving with her mother to northern New Jersey. Barbot was a trailblazer from an early age when she was the starting pitcher for an all-boys baseball team in the 1970s.

Barbot received a bachelor of arts degree from Yale University (graduating in 1987) and a medical degree from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (graduating in 1991). She completed her pediatric residency at George Washington University's Children's National Medical Center.

Early career

Barbot was the chief of pediatrics and community medicine at Unity Health Care, Inc., a health center in Washington, DC. Starting in 2003, she served as medical director of the Office of School Health at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the NYC Department of Education.

It was during this early phase in her career as a community pediatrician that Barbot became more attuned to the ways in which policy at the federal and local level can dramatically affect the lives of everyday Americans.

She was recruited in 2010 to be commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department, where she was the principal architect of Healthy Baltimore 2015, the city's roadmap for better health outcomes. It was Baltimore City's first health agenda with a racial equity lens that incorporated measures addressing the social determinants of health such as food access, oversaturation of liquor outlets in communities of color, and the built environment. Barbot's leadership was instrumental in Baltimore City being the first jurisdiction in the country to use the zoning code to amortize the number of alcohol outlets in residential communities as a remedy for oversaturation.

Barbot served as the first deputy commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, starting in 2014. Barbot led the agency's first public health deployment outside of NYC to Puerto Rico to provide public health support in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. She returned to Puerto Rico with her team to provide mental health support for teachers struggling to provide stability for the island's public school students. She has written and talked about the mental health impacts of climate change.

Commissioner of Health of the City of New York

Barbot was the Commissioner of Health of the City of New York, a position she was appointed to in December 2018 by Mayor Bill de Blasio, succeeding Mary T. Bassett. She was the first Latina to head the Health Department.

Measles outbreak

On April 9, 2019, Barbot, along with de Blasio, declared a public health emergency as the city faced the largest measles outbreak since 1991, requiring residents and workers in the most-affected neighborhoods to be vaccinated against measles or face possible fines. In a press conference that day, Barbot stated that 21 people were hospitalized and five were admitted to an intensive care unit out of the 285 reported cases. Barbot and de Blasio announced the end to the measles public health emergency on September 3, 2019.

Coronavirus pandemic

Barbot led New York City through the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, "when the state was seeing almost 1,000 daily deaths", in her role as the city's Health Commissioner.

In mid-February 2020, as the disease was spreading from China but before any cases were confirmed in New York, Barbot joined city leaders in urging residents not to stigmatize New York's Chinatowns, saying: "There is no reason to avoid public settings, including subways and—most of all—our city's famous Chinese restaurants and small businesses." Over the next two weeks, as superspreading events proliferated around the world with limited testing, she turned more cautious. As she later told CNBC: "It was apparent by late February that the coronavirus had the potential to become catastrophic." March 1 marked the first confirmation of the virus in the city and state.

In mid-March 2020, Barbot denied a New York City Police Department (NYPD) request for 500,000 surgical masks. In a "heated exchange" for which she soon apologized, she told NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan she could only provide 50,000, insisting "I need them for others", referring to the doctors and nurses on the front lines and then added “I don’t give two rats’ asses about your cops.” The Detectives' Endowment Association, Sergeants Benevolent Association, and Police Benevolent Association called for her to be fired, as did Democratic Representative Max Rose.

Ultimately, citing her "deep disappointment" with the mayor's limited use of the health department's expertise, Barbot resigned on August 4, 2020. In a BBC documentary released in March 2021, Barbot stated that her early warnings to de Blasio were largely ignored, and that New York City's delayed decisions to close schools and mandate lockdowns "cost thousands of lives."

In July 2021, Barbot signed on to a letter opposing de Blasio's decision to move the city's homeless population out of city hotels, due to the risk of spreading COVID-19. Barbot's predecessor as health commissioner, Mary T. Bassett, also signed on to the letter.

References

1. ^ Colangelo, Lisa L. (January 17, 2019). "NYC's new Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot knows what it's like to be denied care". Amny.com. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
2. "Oxiris Barbot, MD, Former NYC Health Commissioner, Named President and CEO of United Hospital Fund" (Press release). United Hospital Fund. August 11, 2022. Retrieved December 7, 2022.
3. "Barbot named city's new Health Commissioner; Barbot nombrada nueva comisionada de salud". Manhattan Times News. December 27, 2018. Archived from the original on December 28, 2018. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
4. "Graduates Gather for the First Yale Latino Alumni Reunion". Yale University. April 17, 2009. Retrieved February 27, 2022.
5. Cohn, Meredith (July 7, 2010). "N.Y. official to lead Baltimore's health department," The Baltimore Sun.
6. ^ "The Commissioner - NYC Health; Oxiris Barbot, MD". nyc.gov. Archived from the original on April 4, 2020. Retrieved April 5, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
7. ^ Mullan, Fitzhugh (October 27, 1998). "Bridging Gaps Of Language And Culture". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
8. Vazquez, Jennifer (4 August 2020). "NYC Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot Resigns". NBC New York. Retrieved 2021-11-16.
9. Cohn, Meredith (June 18, 2012). "Baltimore to strip some liquor stores of licenses in rezoning effort". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
10. "NYC Health Department Deploys Team to Help Puerto Rico Recover from Hurricane Maria". Queens Latino. 2017-11-28. Retrieved 2021-11-16.
11. ".@nycHealthy end of week one". Twitter. Retrieved 2021-11-16.
12. "Despair and anxiety: Puerto Rico's 'living emergency' as a mental health crisis unfolds". The Guardian. 2018-08-07. Retrieved 2021-11-16.
13. "Member Profiles; Oxiris Barbot". Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. 15 June 2015. Archived from the original on December 28, 2019. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
14. Henderson, Jennifer (December 19, 2018). "Barbot named health commissioner". Crains New York. Archived from the original on December 20, 2018. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
15. Barbot, Oxiris (March 12, 2019). "The Only Girl On The Yankees". Ms. Magazine. Archived from the original on March 26, 2020. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
16. Jorgensen, Jillian. "Dr. Oxiris Barbot named New York City health commissioner," Archived 2020-04-10 at the Wayback Machine New York Daily News.
17. "Amid measles outbreak, NYC health officials strive to promote vaccination, dispel myths". PBS NewsHour. 2019-04-10. Retrieved 2021-05-12.
18. "New York measles emergency declared in Brooklyn". BBC News. 2019-04-09. Retrieved 2021-05-12.
19. "Mayor de Blasio, Health Officials Declare End of Measles Outbreak in New York City" (Press release). City of New York. September 3, 2019. Retrieved 2021-05-12.
20. ^ Feuer, Will; Higgins-Dunn, Noah (2021-03-16). "A year later, Trump's '15 days to slow the spread' campaign shows how little we knew about Covid". CNBC. Retrieved 2021-05-12.
21. "Mayor de Blasio, Speaker Johnson and Queens Chamber of Commerce Encourage New Yorkers to Visit Asian-American Owned Small Businesses" (Press release). City of New York. February 13, 2020. Retrieved February 27, 2022.
22. Goldstein, Joseph; McKinley, Jesse (March 1, 2020). "Coronavirus in N.Y.: Manhattan Woman Is First Confirmed Case in State". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 2, 2020.
23. Marsh, Julia; Moore, Tina (2020-05-18). "NYC health commissioner apologizes to cops for 'two rats asses' comment". Retrieved 2024-10-25.
24. Russo, Melissa (14 May 2020). "Calls for NYC Health Chief Oxiris Barbot to Resign After Rejecting NYPD PPE Request". NBC New York. Retrieved May 14, 2020.
25. Goodman, J. David (August 4, 2020). "N.Y.C. Health Commissioner Resigns After Clashes With Mayor Over Virus". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
26. Eisenberg, Amanda (March 9, 2021). "Ex-health commissioner knocks pandemic response". Politico. Retrieved February 27, 2022.
27. Sommerfeldt, Chris (26 July 2021). "NYC Mayor de Blasio's Ex-Health Czar Says He'd Put 'Entire City' at Risk of COVID by Booting Homeless from Hotels". New York Daily News. Retrieved 2021-08-13.
28. Brand, David (6 August 2021). "Judge Temporarily Bars NYC's Transfer of Homeless From Hotels to Shelters—Again". CityLimits. Retrieved 2021-08-13.

• Living people
• People from the Bronx
• American public health doctors
• Physicians from New York City
• Yale University alumni
• University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey alumni
• Commissioners of Health of the City of New York
• American pediatricians
• American women pediatricians
• American people of Puerto Rican descent
• 21st-century American physicians
• 21st-century American women physicians
• 20th-century American physicians
• 20th-century American women physicians
• American women public health doctors