City Council Sends Health Bill To State for Consideration

The City Council voted 5-4 last night to send to the state legislature an act that will reorganize Cambridge's Health and Hospitals Department and change the way health policy is developed in the city.

Councilors Barbara Ackermann, Francis H. Duehay '55, Saundra Graham, Alfred E. Velucci and David A. Wylie approved the measure which provides for a 12 member Health Policy Board to act as "a forum for public discussion of health issues."

The act also calls for a change in the present requirements for commissioner of Health and Hospitals in the city, which would allow the appointment of a commissioner who has "experience in the field of public health," even if he is not a licensed physician.

Ackermann, the sponsor of the act and chairperson of the task force which wrote it, said last night that she considers both points of the measure "of equal importance."

Vice-mayor Leonard J. Russell, one of the opponents of the measure, said that "disagreement among the members of the task force" forced him to vote against it.

Mayor Walter J. Sullivan, who also voted against the bill, said that the task force is "disorganized, and unable to provide a schedule for the implementation" of the bill's provisions.

"They haven't even paid their rent," he added.