Cecile Erwin Young, Texas\u2019 health commissioner who was appointed during one of the state\u2019s earliest and worst waves of COVID-19 cases, is retiring. Her last day will be Jan. 2. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis agency impacts every Texan, and I have been honored to serve the people of this state alongside our dedicated staff,\u201d she said in a news release. <\/p>\n
Gov. Greg Abbott will appoint her successor. <\/p>\n
Young took the helm of the health and human services department with nearly 37,000 employees in August 2020, as it navigated the COVID-19 pandemic<\/a>, a crisis in its foster care system<\/a>, and ongoing criticism of its contracting procedures<\/a>. <\/p>\n Under Young\u2019s leadership, the foster care system has been stabilized<\/a> somewhat, some regulatory requirements<\/a> for care were changed to reduce the burden on medical providers across the state, and federal funds<\/a> were secured during the pandemic to create a safety net for hospitals. <\/p>\n Young has also overseen the expansion, renovation, and construction<\/a> of 11 state psychiatric hospitals. <\/p>\n Before taking over as head of the health agency, Young worked at several state agencies and began her work at the Health and Human Services Commission in the early 1990s after the Legislature created it. <\/p>\n When Young took over the state\u2019s health agency, it was in the midst of years of shifting leadership. <\/p>\n Courtney Phillips led the commission for just over a year before leaving<\/a> to take the top job at Louisiana\u2019s health agency in 2020. And in 2018, contracting scandals<\/a> forced several top agency officials, including former Commissioner Charles Smith, to step down. <\/p>\n Abbott said Young\u2019s almost four decades of service for Texas are unmatched, and she leaves a remarkable legacy. <\/p>\n \u201cThroughout her leadership at Texas Health and Human Services and her career as a public servant, she demonstrated her commitment to excellence and integrity, and remained focused on caring for Texans and helping them thrive,\u201d he said in a news release. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cecile Erwin Young, Texas\u2019 health commissioner who was appointed during one of the state\u2019s earliest and worst waves…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[392,17347,148,11538,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-74528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-greg-abbott","tag-health-and-human-services-commission","tag-medicaid","tag-state-agencies","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}