Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Rex Tai, Member of WE ACT for Environmental Justice and Physician at NYC Health and Hospitals, on Cooling Centers and Heat-Related Health Impacts
1:42:09
ยท
132 sec
Rex Tai, a member of WE ACT for Environmental Justice and a physician, testifies on the critical importance of improving access to cooling centers to address heat-related deaths and illnesses in New York City. He emphasizes the urgent need for action based on recent medical society statements and journal reports on climate-related health effects.
- Highlights both acute and chronic health impacts of extreme heat, including heat exhaustion, asthma attacks, cardiovascular issues, and developmental delays.
- Warns that failing to prepare for extreme heat will further strain NYC's already stressed healthcare infrastructure.
- Strongly urges the council to support the introduction to make cooling centers widely available, accessible, and operated to high standards.
Rex Tai
1:42:09
Morning.
1:42:09
My name is Rex Tye.
1:42:11
I am a resident of Central Harlem in City Council District nine, a member of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, and a physician working in New York City Health and Hospitals.
1:42:21
I want to make the case for addressing related death and illness through crucial steps like improve access to cooling centers is overwhelming and indisputable.
1:42:33
Very recently a wide swath of professional medical societies have adopted physician statements to study and prepare for climate related health effects with the utmost urgency.
1:42:43
Leading health journals like the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine have all issued advisory reports for how physicians and public health officials should address and advocate around climate health and heat specifically.
1:42:59
Heat has multisystem health impacts and a lot of attention is given to the acute health consequences such as heat exhaustion, heat stroke, but I also want to bring attention to the statistically significant increase in chronic illness exacerbations that come from heat as well.
1:43:19
This includes allergic triggers for asthma attacks, increased risk of cardiovascular disease like heart attacks, preterm birth, developmental delay, the list goes on and on.
1:43:29
Again, it's a whole system, whole body health set of health consequences.
1:43:36
In the post pandemic era with rising health care costs, hospital closures, systemic staffing shortages, an inability to proactively and comprehensively prepare for extreme heat will stretch the city's health care infrastructure only further.
1:43:50
New York City makes political and budgetary decisions about how sick it chooses for its residents to be.
1:43:56
Please empower the Department of Health, health care workers, and community advocates to serve New Yorkers in the best ways we can.
1:44:03
I strongly urge the council to support this introduction to enable cooling centers to be widely available, accessible, and operated to a high standard.
1:44:11
I additionally endorse all of the testimony and recommendations of my environmental justice allies and urge close collaboration in its effective and equitable implementation.
1:44:21
Thank you.
Lynn C. Schulman
1:44:21
Thank you very much.