{"id":90945,"date":"2025-08-18T03:22:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T03:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/90945\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T03:22:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T03:22:06","slug":"board-of-health-delays-vote-on-kensington-mobile-service-rules-amid-legal-equity-concerns-metro-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/90945\/","title":{"rendered":"Board of health delays vote on Kensington mobile service rules amid legal, equity concerns \u2013 Metro Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published<\/a> by\u00a0Kensington Voice.<\/p>\n

The Philadelphia Board of Health delayed an expected Thursday vote on regulations tied to Councilmember Quetcy Lozada\u2019s mobile services ban, citing legal and equity concerns over its restriction to the 7th Councilmanic District.<\/p>\n

The regulations would let the city\u2019s Department of Public Health create and manage a permitting system specifically for\u00a0mobile medical providers operating in the 7th District<\/a>, which includes most of Kensington.<\/p>\n

The process would enable the health department to verify medical licenses, ensure a \u201cconsistent standard of care,\u201d and require the \u201cnecessary materials\u201d to provide those services, said Ben Hartung, public policy advisor for the health department.<\/p>\n

Enforcement of the law,\u00a0signed\u00a0by Mayor Cherelle Parker<\/a> in May, has\u00a0already been delayed<\/a>\u00a0due to the absence of a permitting process.<\/p>\n

This was the board\u2019s first public discussion of the bill. Members,\u00a0who meet quarterly<\/a>, said they needed more time to deliberate and raised concerns about how the permitting system would be implemented and how the law would be enforced.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is upsetting to me that most of what I know about this bill was not through deliberation or discussions we had as a Board of Health, but was through the media and me following it outside of that realm,\u201d said board member\u00a0Dr. Scott McNeal,<\/a>\u00a0president and CEO of Delaware Valley Community Health Inc. \u201cNow we are meeting for the first time to discuss it and put some type of seal on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the board does not pass the regulations, the city will move forward with permitting and enforcement measures without the health department\u2019s oversight, said Health Commissioner Palak Raval-Nelson. Still, she said the city ideally wants the health department involved.<\/p>\n

Raval-Nelson said the city has asked its law department whether the legislation can be applied citywide and is awaiting an answer.\n<\/p>\n

Board member\u00a0Dr. Marla Gold<\/a>, a former professor of health management and policy at Drexel University and senior vice provost for Community Health, said she wished the board had been more involved from the start and refused to vote without legal input.<\/p>\n

\u201cI object to any process where the tail wags the dog when it comes to public health, and that we\u2019re now running to vote on something, a regulation that perhaps, had we had a chance \u2026 to work on this, we would have perhaps informed this differently at the gate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Gold urged her fellow board members to read the legislation and by the end of the meeting, asked the city to share the\u00a0final approved legislation<\/a>\u00a0with the board.<\/p>\n

Gold acknowledged the challenge of balancing residents\u2019 quality-of-life concerns with the need to coordinate and provide care for people with substance use disorder.\n<\/p>\n

As part of its presentation, the city highlighted a community engagement process led by Lozada and included a quote from Kensington resident Sonja Bingham, who said she was grateful that the community had been involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that said, voting for something that\u2019s Councilmanic specific, I will not do it. I won\u2019t do it,\u201d she said. \u201cBeing promised that we\u2019ll vote on this, and then legal will look, I at least cannot do, it goes against everything that I believe in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gold also said the health department \u2013 not the Department of Licenses and Inspections \u2013 should oversee all permitting, including for mobile providers of food and other basic necessities.\n<\/p>\n

Dr. Usama Bilal, assistant professor of epidemiology and\u00a0co-director of the Urban Health Collaborative<\/a>\u00a0at Drexel University, expressed concern about gaps in access before permits are issued.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a population that needs access to this. There is a permitting process that will limit that access, at least in the short term,\u201d Bilal said. \u201cI want to understand what the PPH or the city\u2019s plans are to cover those gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raval-Nelson said the law won\u2019t be enforced until the permitting process is in place and providers have had a chance to apply.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cServices will just continue as we work to get everybody permitted,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n

Several city officials echoed Lozada\u2019s description of the policy as a way to coordinate services.\n<\/p>\n

But board member\u00a0Dr. Amid Ismail,<\/a>\u00a0dean of Temple University\u2019s Kornberg School of Dentistry, said the law appeared more focused on restricting services than coordinating care.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo limit the provision of service to a certain area of Kensington, squeeze the population out of Kensington, and to allow them only to work \u2014\u00a0maybe I\u2019m not reading it right \u2014 between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., is not a good public health policy,\u201d Ismail said.<\/p>\n

About 20 community members joined the virtual meeting, along with other city and health officials.\n<\/p>\n

All public commenters voiced dissent, with some sending messages in the Zoom chat during the two-hour meeting.\n<\/p>\n

They reiterated that the bill would\u00a0limit access to medical services<\/a>\u00a0to people with substance use disorder in acute need. They urged the board to oppose limits on providers. Some reminded the medical professionals of their oath to \u201cdo no harm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis legislation reflects what the Trump administration is doing. How can you all ring the alarm? You don\u2019t need to be complicit,\u201d wrote Samm Pheiffer of the Positive Women\u2019s Network.\n<\/p>\n

Billy Ray Boyer, who has done mobile outreach in Kensington for seven years, asked for evidence that unhoused residents\u2019 input was considered while drafting the legislation. Boyer said, as far as they knew, there was an \u201cabsolute absence of participation\u201d and invitation to unhoused neighbors for any community meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I go out with my organization on Sundays, we have a line around the block and can never serve everyone and we come out with enough supplies for 200 people,\u201d Boyer wrote in a Zoom message. \u201cWho is going to even fill that small gap if we get regulated and criminalized out of being there?\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Sam Stern of Temple Health said the location for Temple\u2019s mobile provider site was chosen based on city overdose data.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to just urge that if this board ends up regulating the permit process, you consider liberalizing the location and time restrictions from the process to ensure that access to life-saving medical care can continue uninterrupted,\u201d Stern said.<\/p>\n

Board members are awaiting a response from the law department and will reconvene to discuss the regulations at a later date, yet to be determined.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThose of you who\u2019ve joined us, you are clearly being heard tonight,\u201d said Dr. Gold.\n<\/p>\n

Community members were encouraged to email the board via Hartung at\u00a0benjamin.hartung@phila.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article was originally published by\u00a0Kensington Voice. The Philadelphia Board of Health delayed an expected Thursday vote on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-90945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}