{"id":91455,"date":"2026-01-06T20:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T20:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/91455\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T20:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T20:08:11","slug":"olivia-brennan-dies-she-was-at-the-forefront-in-the-drug-abuse-battle-on-staten-isalnd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/91455\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivia Brennan dies. She was at the forefront in the drug abuse battle on Staten Isalnd."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2013 New York City was in the throes of a heroin and crack epidemic in the early 1990s when Olivia Brennan saw the need for a detox unit on Staten Island.<\/p>\n<p>As director of the social work department at the former Doctors\u2019 Hospital in Concord, she battled drug abuse with education and intervention by opening a unit that helped addicts through painful withdrawal and into life-saving rehabilitation.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Her death Saturday morning in Richmond University Medical Center, one day after her 81st\u00a0birthday, inspired memories of a kind and altruistic woman who put the needs of others in front of her own.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer work truly saved and changed lives,\u201d said State Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton in a Women\u2019s History Month tribute last March. \u201cShe was a tireless advocate for Staten Island\u2019s most vulnerable populations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.silive.com\/news\/2026\/01\/olivia-brennan-dies-she-was-at-the-forefront-in-the-drug-abuse-battle-on-staten-island.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read the full article here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2013 New York City was in the throes of a heroin and crack epidemic in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-91455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}