JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Dr. Paul Pitel, who is retiring as longtime chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Nemours Children’s Specialty Care in Jacksonville, will be honored by Jacksonville Area Legal Aid during its Bridges to Justice for Children’s Health virtual event, which will be broadcast Tuesday, Sept. 15, at 6:30 p.m. on JALA’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/JaxLegalAid.
Pitel is being recognized for his leadership role in the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership, through which Nemours and other area health-care institutions refer pediatric patients to legal aid when the children’s individual or family legal needs are adversely affecting their health.
“I’m grateful for this honor, and I really appreciate what JALA and the NFMLP have contributed to our community,” Pitel said.
He said health-care providers are generally not in a position to resolve many of the social determinants of health, which include the conditions in which a patient lives day-to-day.
“If it’s a child who has asthma, which is exacerbated by mold in the house, unless we can get somebody to address those problems, we are just patching up the holes. As health-care systems and as providers, we need legal input.”
Megan Denk, executive director of THE PLAYERS Center for Child Health at Wolfson Children’s Hospital, was the 2019 Bridges to Justice for Children’s Health award recipient.
“Dr. Pitel is passionate about creating structures that take care of kids,” Denk said. “And that’s what the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership does. It provides a system to help doctors ensure their patients’ needs are met in all aspects of their lives and that they have the best quality of life possible. So it’s quite fitting for him to receive this award.”
JALA has raised more than $1 million toward an endowment for the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership, with donations being matched at 125 percent by Baptist Health. The goal is to raise $2.25 million including Baptist’s match, so that the endowment can fund the partnership in perpetuity, ensuring that pediatric patients in Northeast Florida will always have access to assistance with legal issues such as health insurance coverage, educational accommodations, immigration, and access to safe housing, transportation, and other community services.
“The providers we surveyed in our community unanimously agree the NFMLP improves their patients’ health and quality of life and improves their ability to deliver services, with one going so far as to say they ‘sleep better at night’ knowing the partnership is there,” said JALA President & CEO Jim Kowalski. “But we couldn’t do it without health-care leaders like Dr. Paul Pitel. We are forever grateful for his dedication to our community’s children.”
Bridges to Justice for Children’s Health donations support the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership and can be made at: https://www.jaxlegalaid.
About Jacksonville Area Legal Aid
The mission of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid Inc. is to obtain and provide high-quality legal assistance to low-income and other special-need groups and to stimulate and empower groups of poor people to accomplish energetic and affirmative advocacy, all to alleviate the circumstances, incidence and causes
of poverty.
About the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership
The Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership is part of a nationwide network of projects in which professionals from the medical and legal communities combine resources to produce outcomes for low-income and vulnerable patients (children and adults) that positively impact their health and ability to thrive. Through the partnership, Jacksonville Area Legal Aid serves about 200 children a year, including patients of Wolfson Children’s Hospital, Nemours Children’s Specialty Care, Jacksonville, UF Health Specialty Pediatric Clinics, the Sulzbacher Village Pediatric Health Center, and Community PedsCare®, a pediatric program of Community Hospice & Palliative Care.
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