Dr. Ramon Tallaj – SOMOS COMMUNITY CARE
Keeping the Streets Clean
At the apex of the COVID-19 crisis in New York City, Dr. Ramon Tallaj was at work with New York’s vulnerable Hispanic community—a group that he affectionately refers to as “his people.” Now, he is helping New York City attack another of its most prominent problems: litter. With the help of his long-time pal and Yankee World Series Champion, Mariano River, Dr. Tallaj and SOMOS Community care have launched a campaign called “Basket In.” This phrase was coined by the healthcare network to inspire a new community movement in which citizens slam dunk their trash into the appropriate receptacles, instead of leaving it on the ground. With the help of NBA basketball stars Francisco Garcia and Jamel Thomas, a PSA was filmed to show actual basketball stars taking part in the campaign. In addition to this PSA, Dr. Tallaj included a multicultural digital awareness campaign to teach people the importance of throwing away their trash.
Raising the Alarm, Saving Lives
While on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Tallaj and his healthcare crew captured every moment on video. Now, his documentary “Doctor Tallaj: The Hispanic Physician Who Faced COVID-19 In New York,” has been nominated for a NY Daytime Emmy. “We raised the alarm at the beginning,” says Dr. Tallaj, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who founded SOMOS Community Care, a non-profit, physician-led healthcare network caring for over one million New York¬ers, who are almost exclusively from vulnerable Hispanic, Asian, and African-American popu¬lations. “Because our doctors are part of these communities, because we are immigrants and speak the languages of our patients, we could listen to our community and see this coming. It meant that we were able to prepare.” Listen¬ing to the community meant that SOMOS’s network of 2,600 physicians was able to gather supplies. It meant that they were able to quickly open bilingual coronavirus testing centers in underserved areas like Queens, the Bronx, and upper Manhattan (where Dr. Tallaj’s Inwood office is based). “Our people have perhaps $100. They make $15 an hour. They have no money saved for healthcare. They didn’t, in some cases, have money to buy Lysol. Without question, this was the most important crisis I’ve faced in my career,” says Dr. Tallaj, who has half a century of experience. To date, SOMOS has set up more than 200 vaccine sites, adminis¬tered over two million vaccines and served over two million meals to the most in-need New Yorkers. In April 2022, SOMOS became the first primary care network group to partner with New York State to receive direct shipments of the Covid-19 vaccines to their medical offices. As recognition for his valuable work against COVID by his peers, Dr. Tallaj presented Pfizer with the Best Covid Vaccine Award at the VIE Awards in Washington, DC.
Dangerous & Emotional Work
Growing up as the eldest of six children in a mixed Lebanese and Dominican family in Santiago de Los Caballeros, Dr. Tallaj
faced hardship, preparing him for the bumpy road that his career would lead him down. Dr. Tal¬laj quickly became a prominent figure in his country, being appointed the undersecretary of public health and social service, a member of the Dominican-Haitian Frontier Affairs Com¬mission, and then the medical director of the Social Security and Welfare Institute. When Cardinal John O’Connor of the Archdiocese of New York asked him to come serve in New York, he immediately accepted, turning down a position as the Dominican Republic’s Minister of Health. Little did he know that a few decades later, he would advise President Barack Obama on healthcare reform. “It was a dream for me to come to New York,” says Dr. Tallaj, who now enjoys painting and international horse racing in his free time. “It was the American dream.”
Prevention is The Key
Today, as New York heals and reopens, Dr. Ramon Tallaj has been appointed as the cochairman of Mayor Eric Adams’s COVID-19 Recovery Roundtable and Health Equity Task Force. Even with all of this on his plate, he is still with his people—in the streets, at their homes, and in the hospital. That may sound strange for a Manhattan doctor and healthcare executive, but Dr. Tallaj says that is precisely why we have to transform our “sick care” system into a true “health care” system. “We have really done something unique in New York City,” he says of the healthcare platform he founded in 2015. “We establish genuine relationships with our patients and get to know their family circum¬stances, social lives, and the environmental factors that impact the health of the patient and their families. Prevention is the key.” And because so many of SOMOS’s patients rely on Medicaid, those long-term health improve¬ments mean big savings for the state via a 25-percent reduction in hospital admissions..
