Sandra Coleman testifies on Legionnaires impact at Isaac Houses
Minister Sandra Coleman, president of One Night to Advocates and Isaac Houses resident, calls Legionnaires 100% preventable and criticizes the health department for not hiring adequate inspectors. She reports seniors hospitalized with kidney failure from the disease.
Now we're going to go, we have an in-person panel.
We have Minister...
Sandra Coleman.
Just come and take a seat.
Yeah.
And Valerie Mason.
Minister, you can go first.
Go ahead.
Greetings.
Greetings.
My name is Sandra I.
Coleman.
I am a minister, the president of One Night to Advocates, and the co-founder of the Home Sizes Coalition.
I reside at Isaac Houses on the Upper East Side.
Legionnaires disease is 100% preventable.
We should not be here today.
Have we not learned from the seven souls lost in Harlem last year?
One death is too many.
I repeat, one death is too many.
Legionnaires is a year-round disease our health department should have stayed on ready.
If they cared and were accountable to New York City residents, they would have hired an adequate number of inspectors that would have been able to identify cooling towers that tested positive.
NYCHA is a very vulnerable population.
As a minister and community leader, I had seniors from Isaac Houses and Holmes Towers tell me they were hospitalized because they had Legionnaire's disease.
One elder told me their kidneys had shut down.
That disease almost killed him.
This is not a disease that is new.
We know it is curable, but most of all, that it is preventable.
My deepest condolences to the 11 families that lost their dear loved ones to this preventable disease, their family's pain,
Their loved one's blood is on the hands of those who were supposed to protect, inform, and be accountable to them.
Please, please, please be vigil and provide and protect all New Yorkers.
Keep this city safe from this year-round preventable disease.
Thank you for allowing me to testify today.
God bless you all.
Thank you, Ms.
Mason.