JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — For years, Duval County has had one of the state’s highest infant mortality rates, ranking above both the national and state-wide averages. For African American residents in Jacksonville, the rate of infant mortality is even higher.
“It’s our black babies that tend to have the higher risk of infant mortality than our Caucasian babies do here in Duval County,” Chief Health Officer for the City of Jacksonville, Dr. Sunil Joshi, explained Monday. “The same is true throughout the country, but certainly an issue here.”
While Jacksonville mayor Donna Deegan originally set aside $310,000 to prevent infant mortality in her proposed city budget for 2025-2026, the final version set to be voted on by the city council Tuesday night doesn’t include over a third of that. Jacksonville city council has since shaved off what would have been $110k towards congenital syphilis screening done by the Northeast Florida Healthy Start Coalition.
Dr. Sunil Joshi told Action News Jax on Monday that the program would have been critical in the fight against infant mortality rates.
“If a mom is delivering a baby and she has syphilis, she passes that on to the baby between 60 and 100% of the time. If the baby has syphilis when the baby is born, there’s a 40% chance that the baby’s not gonna make it through the first year of life,” Dr. Joshi explained. “So you can see how we can significantly impact infant mortality if we had a screening program for syphilis during pregnancy.”
Action News Jax reached out to city council finance chair Raul Arias, and he explained Monday that the program was cut because the city already has committed roughly $2 million in funding for a similar program through the Department of Health.
Nonetheless, Jacksonville mayor Donna Deegan blamed the loss of funding on a tax cut proposed by city council republicans, saying Monday it’ll only decrease the funds available for certain health-related programs she included in her spending plan.
“It’s really not worth dropping the millage rate to give people a buck a month, and then cut services that are so critical to the health and well-being of our citizens,” Mayor Deegan argued. “From affordable housing to infant mortality to other health services that are important to people’s lives that have told us we need this.”
Now, the final city budget is set to be voted on by the Jacksonville City Council Tuesday night, the same day as the “Root Causes of Infant Mortality Summit.” That summit is scheduled from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at WJCT.
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