Dr. Ramon Tallaj Emmy Winner & Healthcare Reformer
SOMOS Community Care
Dr. Ramon Tallaj, founder of SOMOS Community Care, a non-profit physician-led network of almost 3,000 healthcare providers serving over one million Medicaid beneficiaries in New York City, won an Emmy Award this year. The prestigious award was bestowed for the documentary Doctor Tallaj: The Hispanic Physician who faced COVID-19 in New York, focusing on the heroic activities of Dr. Tallaj and his SOMOS colleagues in caring for vulnerable populations during the pandemic.
You may be surprised to learn that this is the third Emmy that this distinguished, caring physician has won. “The company, SOMOS, has won three, and I’m the producer of all of them, but in this last one, I was also the subject,” Dr. Tallaj says. He points out that SOMOS itself does not perform medical services. The doctors in its network do so, and they have accomplished incredible work.
Emmy-Winning COVID Battle
The majority of SOMOS patients are poor and without government help would not have access to healthcare. “Our doctors do not open their doors on Park Avenue,” says Dr. Tallaj, whose office is in Washington Heights. “Our doctors are in the poorer neighborhoods of Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn.”
“We raised the COVID alarm at the beginning,” says Dr. Tallaj, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic. After the virus took hold in Italy, the first country outside of China to be hit, Dr. Tallaj warned that it would come to the US, and many were skeptical. “It happened. And you know, our neighborhoods, with essential workers, were the ones that suffered the most.” SOMOS was among the first to obtain and distribute vaccines once they were developed.
While tirelessly battling COVID, SOMOS lost 12 physicians to the virus. “To win an Emmy Award is important, but more important is the work we do in the community. For so many years, I’ve helped change people’s lives, especially around the pandemic.”
Dr. Tallaj Throws Out First Pitch at Yankees Game
Iconic ball player Mariano Rivera and Dr. Ramon Tallaj were invited by the New York Yankees to participate in their recent game against the Tampa Bay Rays. Dr. Tallaj, who was chosen to throw out the first pitch because of his work during COVID-19, which included using Yankee Stadium as the city’s largest vaccination center, threw a hard ball to Mariano, who caught it handily. After the game, which the Yankees won 9 to 8, Dr. Tallaj filled Rivera in on his recent trip to the Vatican, where he met with Pope Francis to talk about healthcare in underserved communities, including the Bronx and Washington Heights, where SOMOS has its headquarters.
Distinguished Career
Working with the poor and establishing SOMOS in 2015 was very much a choice. The eldest of six children in a mixed Lebanese and Dominican family, Dr. Tallaj became a prominent figure in his country, appointed Undersecretary of Public Health and Social Service, a member of the Dominican-Haitian Frontier Affairs Commission, and later the Medical Director of his country’s Social Security and Welfare Institute. He was to become the Dominican Republic’s Minister of Health, but instead moved to New York at the behest of Cardinal John O’Connor in 1991. “It was a dream for me to come to New York,” says Dr. Tallaj. His American dream also included advising President Barack Obama on healthcare reform.
Close Ties With Pope Francis
The CEO of SOMOS, Mario Paredes, was assistant to New York’s Cardinal O’Connor when Dr. Tallaj joined the Diocese, and today, he continues working with the Catholic Church, and all churches. In fighting the pandemic, SOMOS did testing and vaccination at synagogues and churches of most denominations around New York City. “We did it everywhere,” Dr. Tallaj says. “And this pope had shown that you have to be sure that we all work together for the good of the people, independent of faith.” He sees Pope Francis, whom he visits with at the Vatican, as a reformer, who places more importance on being close to the people, and what he does in the community, than on his status as pope.
Working Toward Healthcare Reform – Within the System
Dr. Tallaj has been working to reform America’s healthcare system, and he firmly believes that promoting prevention is the most important way to do that. He cannot change the way our healthcare system works, but he can change patients’ behavior and their treatment plans. “The way I see it is this: I believe the United States has the best disease care in the world, based on hospitals, based on buildings to treat people who are sick. Therefore, the more sick people, the more business.”
Dr. Tallaj believes we need to move in a different direction, with prevention as the key. “The best healthcare should be the best prevention,” he says. “Our healthcare system is based on disease, and I intend to use more resources for prevention, so that in the future, less and less people have complications with chronic diseases.”
